Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald revisits kindness, community, and conservation

CURRENT BRIEF VERSION: AVMA’s My Veterinary Life podcast has brought back Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald for an update centered on kindness, community, and conservation, highlighting a career that spans small animal practice, television, comedy, writing, and wildlife advocacy. In the January 8 episode, Fitzgerald reflects on a 43-year veterinary career and discusses his memoir, It Started With a Turtle, which was published in hardcover on December 16, 2024. Outside the podcast, Fitzgerald continues to be closely associated with Denver-area practice and conservation work, including long-running ties to the Denver Zoo and projects in Mongolia. (podcasts.apple.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the update is less about a clinical or regulatory change and more about a durable professional message: veterinary medicine’s influence extends beyond the exam room. Fitzgerald’s emphasis on kindness, local community involvement, mentorship, and lifelong learning aligns with broader conversations already surfacing on My Veterinary Life around access to care, spectrum of care, compassion under pressure, and service-minded veterinary leadership. Recent AVMA podcast episodes have highlighted these same themes through discussions of nonprofit care access, student resilience and compassion, and veterinarians using their skills in humanitarian and One Health settings. That framing also echoes wider veterinary dialogue around cross-sector impact, including wildlife health and conservation. (podcasts.apple.com)

What to watch: Expect this story to keep resonating as practices, schools, and professional groups continue looking for concrete ways to connect wellbeing, ethics, community engagement, access to care, and conservation in day-to-day veterinary work. (podcasts.apple.com)