AVMA spotlights Dr. Miki Mannino’s move into canine rehab
Bottom line
Version 1 — Brief
AVMA’s My Veterinary Life podcast this week spotlights Dr. Miki Mannino, a veterinarian who moved from mixed animal practice into canine rehabilitation and now leads Canine Kinetics Rehabilitation and Sports Therapy. The episode adds to AVMA’s broader career-development coverage for veterinarians exploring nontraditional or evolving roles, and it highlights a pathway that blends clinical experience with additional rehabilitation training. Public background from Mannino indicates she left clinical practice in June 2024 because of serious health issues, later found a treatable cause, and rebuilt her career around canine rehab, a field she pursued through postgraduate coursework. (voyagestl.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the story is less about one career pivot and more about workforce flexibility. Canine rehabilitation is a growing niche that can create options for veterinarians who want lower-impact clinical work, more focused caseloads, or a second chapter after burnout, injury, or illness. It also sits within a more formal professional framework than some clinicians may realize: rehab care is typically delivered with veterinary oversight, certificate programs are available for veterinarians, and board certification exists through the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation. (rehabvets.org)
What to watch: Expect continued interest in career-transition content, rehab training, and team-based mobility services as practices look for new ways to retain experienced veterinarians and support aging, post-op, and sports-medicine canine patients. (myvetlife.avma.org)
Version 2 — Full analysis
AVMA’s My Veterinary Life podcast is turning the spotlight on a career path that many veterinarians may know only at the margins: canine rehabilitation. In its latest episode, the association features Dr. Miki Mannino, a veterinarian who transitioned from mixed animal practice to canine rehabilitation and now runs Canine Kinetics Rehabilitation and Sports Therapy. The profile fits squarely within AVMA’s ongoing effort to surface career pathways beyond the standard full-time clinic model. (myvetlife.avma.org)
That broader context matters. AVMA’s career resources increasingly acknowledge that veterinarians may need or want to pivot, whether because of changing interests, physical demands, wellbeing concerns, or the search for more sustainable work. Its guidance on career transition explicitly encourages clinicians to translate practice skills into other professional settings, and its My Veterinary Life platform has become one of the association’s main channels for those conversations. (myvetlife.avma.org)
Mannino’s story appears to reflect that shift in a very personal way. In a 2025 profile, she said she practiced as a mixed animal veterinarian for years, became seriously ill beginning in 2019, retired from clinical medicine in June 2024, and later learned the underlying cause was treatable lead poisoning. She also described being left with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which limited her ability to stand for long periods, making traditional clinical practice difficult. She said earlier coursework in canine rehabilitation helped open a new professional lane at a moment when she feared she might not be able to work again. (voyagestl.com)
The rehabilitation field she entered is no longer especially fringe. The American Association of Rehabilitation Veterinarians defines veterinary rehabilitation as rehabilitative care and therapeutic interventions for animals delivered with veterinary oversight to relieve pain, restore function, maintain condition, prevent injury, and improve quality of life. Training pathways include certificate programs such as the Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist offered by the Canine Rehabilitation Institute and the University of Tennessee’s canine rehab certificate program, while veterinarians can also pursue specialty-level board certification through the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation. (rehabvets.org)
That layered structure is important for industry understanding. In practice, canine rehabilitation can encompass post-operative recovery, osteoarthritis management, neurologic cases, conditioning for working or sports dogs, and mobility support for aging pets. The model standards published by AARV also emphasize a rehabilitation team that may include veterinarians, physical therapists, technicians, assistants, and boarded specialists, suggesting a collaborative care model rather than a solo service line. (rehabvets.org)
While no separate expert reaction to this specific podcast episode was readily available, the surrounding professional landscape points to why stories like Mannino’s resonate. Education providers market rehab certification as a way to expand diagnostic and treatment skills and open new career opportunities, and AVMA’s own career-development resources increasingly frame nontraditional moves as a legitimate part of veterinary career design rather than a departure from it. That makes this episode feel less like a one-off human-interest feature and more like a signal about how the profession is talking about retention and reinvention. That last point is an inference based on AVMA and training-program materials. (caninerehabinstitute.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is a workforce story as much as an education story. Practices and health systems are still grappling with how to keep experienced clinicians in the field when the physical or emotional demands of traditional practice become too high. Rehabilitation offers one possible answer: a medically grounded niche that can preserve clinical identity, support continuity of care, and meet rising demand from pet parents seeking post-surgical recovery, pain management, and mobility support for dogs. It may also create new referral relationships between general practice, surgery, sports medicine, and rehab services. (rehabvets.org)
What to watch: The next question is whether more veterinary organizations, employers, and CE providers will treat rehabilitation as both a patient-care service and a retention strategy for clinicians seeking sustainable career redesign. Expect continued attention to credentialing, scope-of-practice expectations, and referral-based rehab models as the field matures. (rehabvets.org)