It was just, it was there, and we took off with what we did, I think the most unique part of the place, I had a hospital there at least, and it was not the best hospital in the world, but the first thing as you drove into the hospital… Read More
What kind of staff did you find when you went for this first job?… Read More
We had a histopath technician, and we had a pathologist, Bob Sauer. And then there was one keeper in the hospital, and then one keeper “technician”, Tom Snyder was his name. And so it was quite a bit different. I had, you know, some help, but I still didn’t have… Read More
You’re now a federal employee. Correct. Well, I was put on temporary, I was hired during a freeze, so I was a term appointment for several years before I actually got full-time. But it was a federal position. So what did you find, I mean you went from a part-time… Read More
What was the job, and was it at the National Zoo, or did he have a office of Animal Health and Washington?… Read More
He was offering me as Assistant Veterinarian at the National Zoo. This was long before Front Royal was in existence, and I was gonna be his assistant, and that was basically it. I started doing rounds, and started treating animals, and started instituting some preventative medicine programs, and …… Read More
I mean was it the zoo job that he was offering you?… Read More
No. Hopkins was all for it because it was comparative medicine, and the stuff that I was doing was, I had never had any problems even leaving there, ’cause I didn’t have, sometimes I’d have to leave in the middle of the day or something if there was a, and… Read More
I think just being hands-on and making a difference, actually, probably that was at Baltimore … For the amount of effort and things you did, I got the biggest reward out of improving the animal collection. When I got to national, they had some of the preventative medicines, those programs… Read More
What was the favorite part of your job, when you were at Baltimore?… Read More
I think the communication between veterinarians in the beginning was mainly through personal contacts. We had phone numbers of the other six or seven people that, you know, that we would talk to. We didn’t do a lot of publishing, although I published my first couple of papers when I… Read More
So that was kind of it. We kind of had a newsletter and he, through the Smithsonian, was able to get the postage, and we had a kind of a newsletter long before we had a journal. And that was kind of just a informal, “Well gosh, I did this… Read More
Was it difficult juggling your work at Johns Hopkins and the zoo when you were there?… Read More
And then it was doing all right and then crashed again with the hip joint, filled up with pus and I tapped it, and got out and I said, “Okay, I need some help.” So I called the Children’s Hospital over in Washington DC, and talked, tried to get somebody… Read More
And okay, I’ll be over there in 15 minutes.” So he came over and it was the Head of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, and he looked at it, and he said, “Well, what we gotta do is just open up the joints, and let ’em drain.” So he just… Read More
Were some of the procedures you were doing in Baltimore, were they cutting edge in any way, because maybe they were first time, and were you able then to share them with the other veterinarians, or were they sharing things with you that were then helping you?… Read More
I would say bringing them in as collaborators, because you have to direct them. You know, if somebody comes in, and thinks they’re gonna do all this stuff, and do all these things and do, I said, “We can’t do that on this animal. You know, it isn’t gonna work. Read More
Then I have another great story of … When I was at the National Zoo, we had this orangutan that was born, and orangutans, you know, can get septic from umbilical infections, and this one had a swollen elbow joint, and we had some pus, and you know, it wasn’t… Read More
We had … At the Baltimore Zoo, there was this black leopard that was having seizures, and so they got it into a crate, and brought it down into the animal holding area, so I’m sitting down there, and here is a crate with an opening about this big, with… Read More
Not much, we kind of just, we were flying by what we were doing, and we lost some animals and I’m … What I told my interns and residents and associates that I’ve had, I said, “You know, I made a lot of mistakes, and it’s my job to make… Read More