Kevin Fitzgerald’s AVMA return spotlights kindness and community

CURRENT FULL VERSION: Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald is back on AVMA’s My Veterinary Life podcast, and the update lands as a values story for the profession. In the January 8 episode, Fitzgerald returns to discuss his memoir, It Started With a Turtle, and to reflect on a 43-year veterinary career built around kindness, community involvement, and lifelong learning. The episode positions Fitzgerald not just as a familiar media veterinarian from Emergency Vets, but as a practitioner whose career has crossed clinical medicine, storytelling, comedy, and conservation. (podcasts.apple.com)

That framing fits Fitzgerald’s long public arc. He’s widely known for his years at Alameda East Veterinary Hospital in Denver and for his television work, but he has also spent decades arguing that veterinarians should be active in civic life and conservation. Earlier commentary from Fitzgerald urged veterinarians to speak up on animal issues and stay involved in their communities, while a separate column emphasized volunteering, public education, and local engagement as part of the profession’s duty. Those themes now reappear in a more reflective form through the AVMA podcast update. (dvm360.com)

The memoir itself adds context to why AVMA revisited him now. Published through Archway Publishing, It Started With a Turtle is described as a memoir spanning veterinary medicine, comedy, and conservation. Coverage from Westword and the University of Colorado Boulder highlights the same through line: Fitzgerald’s career has moved across several worlds, but storytelling and advocacy tie them together. In the current podcast listing, AVMA says he uses the conversation to revisit his career and underscore the importance of kindness, community, and continuous learning. (archwaypublishing.com)

His conservation credentials are more than anecdotal. Fitzgerald is a co-author on published prairie rattlesnake research affiliated with both VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital and Denver Zoological Gardens, and he has continued speaking publicly this year about rattlesnake ecology and monitoring work in Colorado. Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, meanwhile, describes more than two decades of field conservation leadership, offering institutional context for the kind of zoo-linked conservation work Fitzgerald has long discussed. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

The broader My Veterinary Life context helps explain why this episode fits the moment. Recent AVMA podcast conversations have leaned into values-based themes across very different settings: Drs. Kristin Jankowski and Sheena Warman discussed spectrum-of-care practice in terms of being “kind and brave,” with an emphasis on access to care and meeting clients where they are; student guest Mary Emfinger described the emotional compression of training after intensive parvovirus shelter work and the need to sustain compassion without burning out; and Dr. Jon Geller’s update on Ukraine and Gaza framed veterinary work as a practical way to respond to humanitarian crisis, including infectious-disease and One Health concerns at borders. Fitzgerald’s episode is different in tone, but it lands in the same editorial lane: veterinary medicine as a profession shaped as much by courage, empathy, and public service as by technical skill. (podcasts.apple.com)

There doesn’t appear to be a wave of formal industry reaction to this specific podcast episode, which isn’t unusual for a professional podcast update rather than a regulatory or commercial announcement. But the broader expert context is notable. Cornell’s October 15, 2025, podcast with Dr. Steve Osofsky presented One Health and Planetary Health as practical frameworks linking wildlife, domestic animals, people, and environmental stewardship. That lens helps explain why Fitzgerald’s mix of companion animal practice and conservation work still resonates: it mirrors a profession increasingly asked to think across sectors, not just species. Dr. Geller’s My Veterinary Life update reinforces that same cross-sector reality from another angle, describing border veterinary checks for refugee animals, infectious-disease control, and zoonotic risk as part of crisis response. (vet.cornell.edu)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this story is really about professional identity. Fitzgerald’s update reinforces that a veterinary career can include medicine, yes, but also public trust, education, advocacy, and community presence. That’s especially relevant in a period when the profession is still wrestling with wellbeing, retention, and how to make clinical work feel sustainable and meaningful. His message also aligns with AVMA’s policy view that veterinarians have opportunities to advocate for animal welfare at both individual and community levels. And it connects naturally with other recent AVMA podcast themes: spectrum-of-care thinking tied to access-to-care realities, compassion under the strain of training and heavy caseloads, and service beyond the clinic in disaster or conflict settings. For teams serving pet parents, the takeaway is practical: credibility grows when clinicians are visible, grounded, and connected to the communities they serve. (avma.org)

There’s also a welfare-and-ethics angle. Kindness, as presented here, isn’t soft branding. In practice, it can shape how teams communicate with pet parents, mentor younger colleagues, and navigate care in emotionally charged cases. The “be kind and be brave” framing from Jankowski and Warman adds another layer: kindness in veterinary medicine can include honest spectrum-of-care conversations that preserve access rather than defaulting to a single ideal plan. Community involvement matters, too, because it broadens veterinary medicine’s reach into sheltering, wildlife, public education, and access-to-care conversations. Fitzgerald’s career offers a high-profile example of that broader mandate. (avma.org)

What to watch: Watch for more professional storytelling that elevates veterinarians working at the intersection of clinical care, conservation, public engagement, and access-to-care problem-solving, especially as One Health and welfare frameworks continue moving from academic language into everyday veterinary identity. (vet.cornell.edu)