What is it like working and living in Alaska?
Living in Alaska is wonderful! From one day to the next you never know what you might see walking down the sidewalk or sitting in your backyard or outside the clinic, including black bears, moose and bald eagles. Also, you have the outdoors within minutes of your location to go hiking, back packing, camping, cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, bicycling, fishing and hunting.
Working in Alaska is similar to any other city except for a few differences. Our access to most veterinarian specialists is over the phone or via email, but we can ship patients down to Washington State Veterinarian teaching hospital for evaluation and further care, if needed.
Other differences include patients shipped in from the Bush, meaning the interior, coastal, or Aleutian chain of Alaska, where there are no veterinary services. Owners of ill pets who live in the Bush will have to place their pet on a plane, which may only transport goods and mail to the area once or twice a week, to deliver their pet to our clinic for medical or surgical care depending on the case. Once the pet arrives a physical is completed and the owner is contacted with the information and estimated diagnostics and treatment plans.
Working in Alaska, we have some injuries that most veterinarians are not acquainted with, like injuries caused by moose, bears and porcupines. There are also injuries from snow mobiles, cross-country skies, snowboards and ice skates in the winter months, and four wheelers in the summer time.
What drew you to live in Alaska?
My husband, Matt, and I were drawn to Alaska for the wide array of available outdoor activities with the conveniences of a city. Specifically, mountains within walking range and actual seasons.
The seasons allow for a multitude of activities: back packing, camping, fishing, hunting, hiking and road-biking in the summer and skiing (downhill & cross-country), snowboarding, and snow-shoeing in the winter time.
What was your most memorable case?
Owners of a Labrador reported an injury to the dog from a bear while the Lab was protecting the chickens. There was a very clean laceration on the side of his chest and no other visible marks so we were all thinking there was no way the injury was sustained by a bear's paw. It wasn't until the Labrador was under anesthesia and the wound was being clipped for laceration repair that we were able to see three additional claw marks which were only superficial scrapes. Once the entire area was clipped, there was a definite mark of a bear claw. The Lab had been very fortunate that only one claw penetrated his skin.
