Dana Varble
DVM, CAE, Chief Veterinary Officer of the NAVC
Dana Varble received her veterinary degree from University of Illinois in 2003 and earned her Certified Association Executive designation from ASAE in 2021. She has practiced clinical medicine in exotic pet, small animal general practice and emergency medicine and serves as an associate veterinarian for Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital. She has spoken locally, nationally, and internationally on herpetological and exotic animal medicine and the state of the veterinary profession. She served as the president of the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians in 2013 and presently works as the managing editor of the Journal of Herpetological Medicine and Surgery for ARAV. In 2015, she joined NAVC and in January of 2020 she was named Chief Veterinary Officer. As a NAVC spokesperson and a veterinary industry expert, she promotes animal health and the veterinary profession through media interviews and appearances including CNN, Steve Dale’s Pet World, Pet Life Radio, NBC News, local media outlets and others.
She shares her home with a mixed-up brown dog named Hannah, a Leonberger named Kodi, a tank of cichlids, four ball pythons, and a domestic human, Patrick, and his kids Lexi, and PJ.
Read Articles Written by Dana Varble
I’d had one of those days. The 15-minute recheck’s pathology report crossed my desk moments before the appointment was scheduled to start, and it turned into an hour-long oncology consult. The last appointment before lunch was late, and the indigestion from scarfing down leftovers followed me into the afternoon when the Bernese mountain dog’s emotional support Chihuahua, Pickle, also needed his ears looked at. And while Pickle was a lovely canine companion, he was a terrible veterinary patient.
I just wanted to get home, get into threadbare sweats, and curl up to watch the charming family photographer break up with the career-obsessed city guy to start over again with the Christmas tree farmer. That’s when the blue and red lights in my rearview mirror appeared and my day was topped off with a deserved speeding ticket and a reminder about my safety.
Let’s face it, we like it simple. The man in the black hat is bad, and the cowboy in the white hat is good. The elitist villain is cleverly defeated by the “awe shucks” secret superhero. These tropes are popular for a reason: They don’t force us to ponder life choices or resolve moral entanglements. Real-life “characters” are far less satisfying. Politicians on the opposite side who decide to support legislation we agree with, musicians we love who create music with risqué lyrics that surprise us, or our favorite author who takes action on a social stance we find abhorrent. All you have to do is log on to your favorite social media addiction to find proof that we hate those characters. We don’t want to resolve those contradictions. We want to walk away, boycott, and cancel them or ignore their shortcomings and defend them. But what if you can’t just walk away or brush off the problems? What if the complicated character in your life is you?
There are a multitude of studies that show that most people think they are good (above average in fact!). You probably think you are a good person—I know I do. At the same time, nearly 90% of the population will admit to speeding while driving, a crime. When I told my dental hygienist that I was routinely flossing, that was a lie, immoral. Some estimates say almost 40% of us will shoplift at some point in our lives—ever walked out of the grocery store with that case of toilet paper below the cart you forgot about?
When we don’t let others exist in a world of contradictions, we don’t let ourselves either. We make excuses for our behavior rather than doing the very hard work of examining ourselves, acknowledging our shortcomings, and improving our own behavior. You won’t be the hero in every story, even if in the made-for-TV movies the veterinarian is always the good one!
