Vet,

from p. 6

in Eau Claire that handles extreme emergency cases, and is the location Nemec will often tell owners to go to in the event of an overnight or weekend emergency. There’s also a clinic in Madison that specializes in degenerative diseases and can perform more tests such as MRIs.

“You can go for an MRI and additional diagnostics, but it all comes with a price tag,” she said. “It all depends on what a person wants to spend on their pet. There are options now that weren’t there before. They have shorter lifespans than us, and as they are living longer we are seeing more of these degenerative diseases that become an issue. Cats get kidney failure. Issues present as they age and you try to keep giving them as high of a quality of life as possible.”

The future Like many professions, Nemec said there is a shortage of veterinarians and certified veterinary technicians in Wisconsin. Despite the need, both in small animal care and in large animal care, she said there are not a lot of people going into the field and pursing education.

“There is a void in vet care in central Wisconsin,” she said. “It’s hard to find certified vets and bring them in. We don’t have enough vet technicians in the area. Here, I can’t always find someone to cover for vacations, so I end up working a lot of hours. People sometimes wonder why I don’t do on-call services. I work five days a week and take care of the business stuff on weekends. It’s a lot to take care of.”

Part of the challenge of going into veterinary school, Nemec said, has been the lack of local programs. In the past, she said anyone who wanted to become a veterinarian had only one option in the state to go to, and it is a highly competitive program to get into. But recently, she said there have been some expansions of programs and offerings being made in other colleges that are giving people other avenues to get schooling.

“Education-wise, going into vet school is a challenge,” she said. “We have one vet school in Madison that is highly competitive to get into and is a four-year program. If you go into a specialty course after that, that’s an additional three-year program. Thankfully, we got a program now in Wausau that is a vet tech program, that’s a semi-local place a person can go to.”

Just like someone going into the medical field, Nemec said there are a lot of options for a person to go into in the veterinary field.

“Teaching the next generation is something special,” she said. “There are so many facets of veterinary medicine that a person can go into. Small animal, large animal, wildlife, there are just so many options.”

Regardless of what specific career a veterinarian decides to take on, Nemec said part of the joy of the job is its unpredictability.

“The cool thing is that you don’t know what will come in on a given day,” she said. “You can have a day with preventative care and vaccines and then it changes to having a hit by car, porcupine quills and dogs eating something bad. It can really be feast or famine around here and when there’s events going on, it can be pure chaos, it just gets so busy. Sometimes, none of us are available to answer a phone, so if that happens, there’s usually a good reason why. Everyone is busy taking care of something and all hands are on deck. We can have a c-section where there are 11 puppies and everyone is taking care of a puppy. You never know what will happen and that’s the cool part for me. It’s always so different, you’re always learning. There are always new advancements that are being created, new drugs, new studies that come out. You are always continuing to learn.”