Starting Late, But Right on Time: Veterinary Medicine as a Later Career

My 22-year career in veterinary medicine has been anything but a straight line between destinations, but it has always been guided by my love for the human–animal bond. It’s my north star, although professionally, I didn’t start out following it.

This article is brought to you in partnership with Pawsibilities Vet Med.

By the time I found the courage to walk away from the mind-numbingly boring comfort of a job in financial publishing in New York City to finally chase down a lifelong dream of working with animals and pursuing a veterinary science technology degree, I had already earned degrees in political science and international relations.

There are pros and cons to changing careers midway through life (BOX 1); naturally, there can be some hesitation and fear involved, but there is also the excitement of starting over and doing something that makes you eager to show up each day.

My job dissatisfaction back then was a blessing in disguise because I had made the decision not to continue working in a field that left me unfulfilled. As I shifted to veterinary medicine, I brought with me the skills, aptitudes, and perspectives I gained from previous work experiences. I benefitted from the maturity and greater sense of self that comes from being a bit older than other students. However, there were still challenges.

Challenges in the Veterinary Medical Workplace

Like most new vet tech grads, I was excited to start working in practice. I was eager to meet new like-minded technicians and to use the clinical techniques I had learned. I was an eager “brand new baby tech!” I had a romanticized notion that my new world would be the polar opposite of the one I had left behind. Since we were all people who were passionate about the same things, there would be minimal drama, very little space for negativity, and teams that were in sync and who worked well together. After all, we were there to help animals! So, you can imagine the shockwave I felt when the reality of life on the treatment floor didn’t exactly match up to what I had envisioned. I was not prepared for the toxic culture I had walked into and started to realize that it was not a place for me. In one case, I developed a deep distrust of the practice manager because she openly encouraged infighting among the technician staff. In another instance, I watched the head technician openly berate a colleague who had confided in another colleague his desire to leave and work at a different hospital. The atmosphere was one of disrespect and mistreatment, which was a huge red flag for me.

For a brief period, I even questioned whether I still wanted to be a tech at all, let alone a tech at that hospital. The workforce challenges in our profession are well researched, and it has been documented that a negative/toxic work environment is a contributing factor to veterinary technicians’ decreased interest in remaining in the field long term.⁴ Toxic environments and attitudes can cause friction within teams and confusion over responsibilities⁵; therefore, encountering both early on in my new career journey was troubling.

However, I knew that I could not let those negative experiences color my entire journey. In that practice, I felt misaligned between being my authentic self and who I thought I needed to become just to fit in, and it resulted in a form of code-switching that left me exhausted and disillusioned. I don’t know if it was due to the age difference between me and other technicians, but I found myself not calling out unprofessional or inappropriate behaviors in the interest of not rocking boats. It was a “go along to get along” mentality that wasn’t consistent with who I was. My private turmoil was feeling like I couldn’t bring my best professional skills to that environment because they might not be appreciated, or worse, viewed negatively.

The Power of the Pivot

A few months later, my world was upended when I learned I had stage III non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Because of the impact chemotherapy had on my weakened immune system, my oncologist advised me to stop working directly with animals. So, there I was fresh into a new career and sidelined from doing the very thing I came here to do. It took a little over a year to get through recovery, and during that time I learned to appreciate the “power of the pivot.”

My longevity in this profession isn’t merely the sum of the number of years I’ve been a licensed veterinary technician; it’s better attributed to how I found ways to leverage new opportunities and continue in a profession that I simply was not done with yet.

A survey of veterinary technicians published in 2020 found that among the 1642 respondents, the highest percentage (25.5%) reported having been in the profession only 6 to 10 years.⁶ In a paper published by the AAHA in 2024, it was noted that among surveyed veterinary clinical professionals who had left working in practice, many “cited issues with workplace culture and leadership as contributing factors to their departure.”⁷ Another smaller study outlined how the physical demands of the work, burnout, and a perceived lack of career advancement and flexibility were impediments to longevity as a technician.⁸ Those were big considerations that factored into my decision years ago to serve our profession in another way.

Joining veterinary medicine later in life meant I could benefit from wisdom gained in past work. There were many lessons from my financial publishing life that helped me navigate the opportunities that eventually lay ahead in veterinary medicine (BOX 2). My postclinical career has involved positions in academia, state association leadership, and the animal health industry. Each experience was richer than the previous one because I was able to build upon existing talents, learn new ones, and grow relationships along the way. Regardless of where any of us is in the field, we all bear a responsibility for professional stewardship in one way or another. Early on, my contribution was hands-on in treatment rooms and surgical suites, then I supported the pipeline of the profession by lecturing at conferences and teaching veterinary technician and veterinary students. Later, in industry, I supported the people who make up veterinary healthcare teams.

Following My North Star

Many of the skills that sustain me now weren’t taught in school—they were shaped by time, people, and perspective. I’ve been blessed to do and see a lot in our field, and I’m still not done. I’m completing another graduate degree—this time in anthrozoology. This interdisciplinary area of study has revealed a myriad of new ways I can continue contributing to our noble profession. Although my occupational directions may have changed over the years, my north star never has. The human–animal bond is still my purpose and passion, and the guiding arc that has stretched from the beginning to today.