Personal Narrative: My Interview With Dr. Maloney Interview
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I decided to interview my hometown vet Dr. Lehua Maloney, she has been the primary vet for both of my dogs for as long as we have had them and I was fortunate enough to job shadow her during the summer. Dr. Maloney has had many life and career changes in her life from changing her major to deciding to stay in Minnesota instead of moving back to Hawaii, which was her original plan.
Dr. Maloney attended the University of Hawaii, where she was born and raised, for her undergraduate major of mathematics. She planned on going to medical school after this due to her passion for medical sciences but then applied to veterinary school due to her love for animals. After deciding to go for veterinary science instead of attending medical school, Dr. Maloney…show more content… She does small mammal as well such as rabbits, rodents, etc. She especially enjoys Canine Reproduction and Surgery, especially orthopedic surgery. Dr. Maloney schedules her surgeries for the morning, until around noon, and then has appointments in the afternoon. Besides doing the “fun” things like surgery and diagnosing animals, her job consists of a lot of phone calls and phone conversations consulting clients, answering questions about their pet’s illness or complications they are having from surgery after they have been discharged from the hospital. Co-owner of this practice, Dr. England specializes in beef, dairy, cervid medicine and surgery. While their associate Dr. Denisen has a particular interest in spinal manipulation and essentially “animal chiropractic.” Since there are so many different interests of the vets at Winona Veterinary Hospital, they have a wide variety of clients that come in and have a wide set of skills among the three of…show more content… She shared a couple of examples with me including one client who was so neglectful of their dog that they allowed it to go years without treating it’s severe allergic dermatitis. The skin sores in this case were very severe and the dog was also missing its hair. Another case that appalled Dr. Maloney was when a rabbit came in that was infested with maggots because the owner did not pay attention to the fact that it had been having diarrhea and had a severely soiled hind end. The biggest downfall of her job is that she has to euthanize animals because their owners cannot always afford the treatment needed. I witnessed this first hand last summer. A cat was put down because it was severely dehydrated and had crystals forming in its pee. Not only did they put the cat down because they could not afford treatment, they talked to Dr. Maloney over the phone and said to “put it down and they would pick up its body later.” I was appalled by the fact that 1. This owner got a pet when they probably knew that they would not be able to give it the proper treatments and 2. They did not even come to be with the cat when it was put down. To me, that showed me how little they cared about it and that it was not a very important part of their