Meet The Specialist - Dr. Julie Smith, Veterinary Anesthesiologist, MedVet Vancouver

My name is Dr. Julie Smith and I am a board certified anesthesiologist. I train the technicians to be nurse anesthetists so that they can provide safe and pain-free anesthesia for surgery and other procedures. People always told me that I had a good rapport with animals and I should consider being a veterinarian. It's not really a passion as it is my nature and I think that's what people saw in me early on. How I landed in anesthesia is I think I was just really attracted to the fact that I could anesthetize many many species. I've done sharks, I've done horses, bulls, goats. I mean I've just been so fortunate to do all kinds of species. What I love most about what I get to do every day is my job is to help pets who come to us for care feel safe. Whether it's relieving their pain, relieving their anxiety, keeping them warm when things are going bad and they have painful injuries and things that we can help them get through it as easily as they can. If I was not a veterinarian I would definitely still be doing something in the animal field. I worked for the San Antonio Zoo for some time before I ever went to vet school. Outside of work you'll usually find me, I have a little mosaics glass cutting shop in my garage and I like to walk you know which is this is such a beautiful area to do that. What I like most about working for MedVet is that I feel heard. It's a veterinary run company. They don't try to tell us what to do, they let us be the doctors that we are and support us.