The (formerly) reluctant veterinarian

"There are 2 groups of people: those who are born wanting to be a veterinarian, and people who come there later. I'm definitely the latter,” Erik Zager, DVM, DACVECC, said.

He was not supposed to be a veterinarian. For most of his early life, he was adamant about it. "I knew that I wanted to be anything but a veterinarian," he confessed with a laugh during a recent episode of Caitlin’s Corner, a dvm360 multimedia program. However, a road trip through the Australian Outback changed his mind.

During a semester abroad, Zager's parents flew Down Under to visit him. His mother jokingly floated the idea of veterinary medicine as a career path for him. This time, something was different. "I had the time, and I guess the maturity, to give it some serious consideration," Zager said.

He measured it against 3 benchmarks he'd set for any career: It had to be ethical, it had to be interesting, and it had to pay a living wage. Veterinary medicine passed all 3. This path wound through veterinary school and residency at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he briefly considered multiple specialties before the emergency department (ED) pulled him in for good.

"No day was the same," he said when talking about the appeal of emergency care. "I would always just swing by the [ED] and see what was happening. It was by far the most interesting place."

After that, he took a bold leap: He moved to Hong Kong to establish the region’s second critical care department,. The 3 years he spent there reshaped him, not only professionally but personally.

"It taught me so much about how to relate to people with different worldviews, different cultures, different religions—and how that affects the way I practice medicine,” Zager said of that time.

His international experience planted a seed. When his residency colleague and close friend Mariana Pardo, BVSc, MV, DACVECC, founded Global Instruction for Veterinary Empowerment, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising the standard of veterinary medicine worldwide, she tapped Zager to serve as vice president and treasurer. Their inaugural mission trip took them to

the Philippines, where they delivered advanced clinical education to veterinarians eager to take their practices further.

"I feel so lucky to be able to give back in that way, not only domestically, but to go out internationally and help bring up the level of veterinary medicine throughout the entire world," Zager said.

He also strongly believes that every new veterinary graduate should complete an internship before entering practice. In human medicine, it's required. In veterinary medicine, it isn't, and Zager believes that gap matters.

"You look at how much knowledge has grown, and yet vet school is still 4 years," he said. "That internship truly lets you take all that book knowledge and put it into practice." He's clear-eyed about the financial pressures that make the choice difficult, but no less firm in his belief that it's worth it.

Today, Zager is a critical care specialist and the head of the critical care department at Philadelphia Animal Specialty and Emergency, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.