Karen M. Roach, RVT, VTS(ECC)

Born and raised on the salty shores of Canada’s East Coast, Karen M Roach, RVT, VTS (ECC), took her love of animals (and an impressive tolerance for bad weather) to the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, where she graduated from the Animal Health Technology program in 1994. After a few years in general practice, she jumped into the deep end - emergency medicine - joining the newly opened Metro Animal Emergency Clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Not content with just handling late-night pet emergencies in Atlantic Canada, Roach took on the ultimate adventure: New York City. In 2000, she completed a one-year Veterinary Technician Internship at The Animal Medical Center, where she discovered a passion for anesthesia and critical care medicine (and possibly also an appreciation for the art of jaywalking).

After surviving the concrete jungle, she returned to Halifax to continue her emergency medicine journey, eventually earning her Veterinary Technician Specialist designation in Emergency and Critical Care in 2013. But wanderlust (and maybe the prospect of milder winters) struck again, and in 2014, Roach packed up and headed south to New Jersey.

Four years at NorthStar Vets later, she traded in the fast pace of ER/ICU life to focus on training the next generation of vet tech superheroes. Since 2018, she has been part of the Training Department at Mount Laurel Animal Hospital, where she gets to combine her expertise, experience, and endless patience (honed from years of caffeine-fueled ER shifts) to teach and mentor others in the wild world of veterinary medicine.

When not wrangling vet techs-in-training, Roach can likely be found reminiscing about the ocean, dodging New Jersey traffic, contemplating why she ever thought moving away from donair sauce was a good idea, or sipping chai tea sweetened with the only syrup that matters - Canadian maple syrup. A devoted (and slightly crazy) cat lady, she shares her home with multiple feline overlords and has an undeniable soft spot for geriatric cats. One day, she dreams of opening a feline hospice care, because every cat - especially the old, cranky ones - deserves to be spoiled until the very end.Roach is originally from the east coast of Canada. She has worked in general practice, and Metro Animal Emergency Clinic in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She completed an internship at the Animal Medical Center in New York, NY, and later became a veterinary technician specialist in emergency/critical care. Now in New Jersey, she spent 4 years at NorthStar Vets in Robbinsville, and is currently a mentor at Mount Laurel Animal Hospital.