Episode 58 | Dr. Ernie Ward

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today? Hi, everyone. I’m Stacy Purcell, the founder and CEO of the Vet Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession. I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States, and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche. For the past 25-plus years, I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers. The People of Animal Health podcast highlights incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career. You will be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guests, you’ll be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the People of Animal Health podcast. Today, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Ernie Ward, an award-winning veterinarian, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and one of the most influential voices in veterinary medicine. A 1992 graduate at the University of Georgia. Dr. Ward is the founder of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention and co-founder of the World Pet Obesity Association. He serves on numerous advisory boards, hosts the Veterinary Viewfinder podcast, and champions healthier lifestyles for both pets and people. From clinic founder to media personality, Dr. Ward’s impact spans clinical practice, public health education, and global veterinary leadership. Welcome onto the People of Animal Health Podcast, Ernie. So glad you’re here today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled for this conversation.

Well, Ernie, I would love to start off at the beginning, what was your life like growing up, and where did you grow up?

Let’s go way back to the dark ages, right? Well, I’m originally, I was born in Alabama. My family is from south Georgia and south Alabama, and about age seven or so, we wound up planting roots in Southwest Georgia, in a place called Albany, Georgia. If you’re from there, you know it’s Albany. Albany, Georgia, and so that’s where I grew up. Coincidentally, my wife also grew up there. And so it was a small rural town, and we lived way out, not in the city, but we lived way out. We had a lot of acreage, we had all kinds of animals. Interestingly, all of my immediate family, so all of my aunts and uncles on both sides were in farming, and my mother and father were the only two that actually went to college, and kind of went and got a regular job, I guess you’d say. So I grew up really around animals in a rural setting for most of my life, and so I think that greatly my career decision. Because again, I think there are folks that come from that type of background and it seeps in the blood.

Well, you have been called America’s pet advocate, and you’re known for elevating the standard of care and veterinary medicine. You just talked about what inspired you to pursue a career as a veterinarian, how has that mission evolved over the years?

Yeah, great question, Stacy. I’m one of those veterinarians that always knew I would be a veterinarian. Not that I even wanted to be a veterinarian, I just knew that this is what I would do. And it’s one of those strange things that you can’t really articulate. But I do know when it crystallized in my mind, that this would actually be the job. And I was a young child, probably around seven or eight years of age, and I had gotten my first dogs. These were my dogs. I found them. Now again, remember, we lived way out in the country, and so I found two dogs that were stray puppies, and they had either been abandoned by their mom or got lost, or whatever. But Missy and Taco were kind of my first forays into animal ownership, if you will. And unfortunately, for anybody that grew up in the country, you know the rules of farming life, and that is that you keep your dogs on your property.

Well, the problem is your dogs don’t know where the property lines end, and barbed wire fences are really good at keeping cattle and horses and goats in, but really bad at keeping dogs out. So Taco allegedly was a chicken killer. And I don’t doubt it for a second, but one of our neighboring farms had… We all had chickens, and they had told us a couple of times, “Hey, your dog’s killing chickens. If it happens again, we’re going to take your dog out.” Well, one hot summer night down in South Georgia, I was awakened by the unmistakable report of a 12-gauge shotgun. And if you grow up like I did, you know the difference between buckshot and birdshot, and this was definitely the former, not the latter. And I bolted out of bed, ran outside, because obviously, this is a very unusual situation. My parents are saying, “No, no, no.”

And miraculously, Taco has drug himself back to our home, and he’s missing about half of his abdomen. His chest cavity is completely destroyed. But he drug himself back, and I’ll never forget the tragic moment of me sort of grabbing him, holding him, collapsing in our gravel driveway. And it was at that moment that I said, “Well, I’ve got to be able to save these animals.” So it was born out of trauma, Stacy, and I’ve written a lot about this, because I think that’s part of just learning your why and why you do things. And you have to transcend that, because it was born of pain. But the reality is there was a deep connection that accelerated and catalyzed my desire to become a veterinarian. And really, from that moment on, I guess there was just no looking back.

I did one time, at the request of my mother and father, who my mother was adamantly opposed of me becoming a veterinarian. And so one of our dear family friends was a very well-respected nephrologist, and she says, “Ernie, before you go off to college, you’ve got to try this human medicine thing.” So I went and shadowed Dr. Clark, the nephrologist, for a couple of days, and that was the best, worst thing that could have happened. Because if you’ve ever been to a dialysis clinic, especially during the late-70s, early-80s, it was not a great experience. And I walked out of there even more resolute in my desire to become a vet.

Wow, what a gruesome story about Taco, and I’m sure that did nothing for the neighbor relations.

Oh, no, it deteriorated very rapidly after that.

I can imagine. Well, Ernie, you founded the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention nearly 20 years ago. What led you to focus so heavily on pet obesity, and what progress or setbacks have you seen in that area since then?

Yeah, thanks for asking about that. And I’ll be honest with you, and I know I’ve told lots of folks during lectures, and I’ve written about this exhaustively, but I got into pet obesity because I’m most interested in longevity. And if you look at all of the things we can do to manipulate health on human and animal side, really maintaining a lean body mass is, without a doubt, the most effective means of living a longer, healthier, more vital life. And so as I started saying, “Okay, I want to extend the quality of life and the longevity of the pets that I serve,” it quickly became apparent to me that obesity was underserved.

And you’ve got to go back over 20 years ago, when this is happening. So now this is 2003, 2004, and in 2004, I was at a speakers dinner with one of my very dear friends and mentors, Dr. Steve Budsberg, who is of course, a very famous surgeon, and was past president of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. And he was one of my professors at Georgia. And we’re at this dinner, and I’m sitting there lamenting obesity, and nobody’s talking about it. And he goes, “Well, why don’t you do something about it then?” And so I said, “You know what, Steve, I’m going to take you up on it.” And Steve was one of our first board members. And so that was kind of it, it was off to the races.

And we really sort of broke out our mission into three phases. And each one of these, I assigned about a 15-year window, which I can remember the early board members going, “What? Why are you looking so far longitudinally?” But I know that change like this, it takes time. And so the first 15 years, which actually wound up taking us about 17 years, we had a little detour called COVID. We said, “This is really the awareness phase.” This is the actual making this not a funny, Garfield is a fat and happy cat situation, to actually awareness that this is a disease state, and it impacts negatively our health and longevity. The second phase, which we were just now, a couple of years in, is the interventional stage. So now we’ve got much more sophisticated diet interventions. We’re on the cusp of having medical interventions, like GLP-1s and other drugs, so that’s going to be that final.

And then the last phase of the organization will really be back to the preventive phase. Because you’ve got to be aware of a problem, you’ve got to have a solution, and then of course, really all hands on deck to prevent it. And so that’s sort of the overarching theme of what I’m trying to do here. We did found the World Pet Obesity Association, which actually is more focused, not only just international aspect and scope of obesity, but also on the interventions. Because we knew that obviously, the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention ultimate goal was to prevent this disease, but we also knew that we needed an organization that was really dedicated to intervention. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell.

Well, your upcoming textbook, Veterinary Clinical Obesity: a Multidisciplinary Approach, takes a deep dive into this topic that you’ve championed for decades. Can you give us a preview of what veterinary professionals and pet owners can expect from it?

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I’ve written several books, written several textbook chapters. I’ve done a lot of research, and so forth, on obesity, but everything to date, by and large, has been prescriptive. That means that these are guides on how to treat it, right? How to even recognize it, right? But the book is really, every book is how do we solve the problem? So if your dog or cat has obesity, or horse, this is what you do. And I realized the gap was understanding the pathophysiology of obesity, and so that’s really what this book… We go through organ systems. And talk about whether it’s going to be liver and kidney, whether it’s going to be anesthesia and breathing, so all of the different systems. Reproductive plays a big role into this.

So we go through it through systems, to say, “Look, here’s the pathophysiology.” So I think it’ll be an excellent sort of addition to the existing textbook literature, but again, with a deep dive into the pathophysiology. So right now, authors are finishing up chapters. I’m super happy. I was very intentional to get an international roster. So we have authors from all continents, all around the world, and so I’m super excited to bring that to market. Hopefully, that’ll be out next year. I know that Wiley would love for me to have it sooner, but it takes time to do these things right. So we’re super excited about it. So Veterinary Clinical Obesity on your bookshelves, hopefully in the very near future.

Yeah, I look forward to seeing that. Congratulations on that. I know that’s a big endeavor, and congrats on getting all those international authors involved. Well, Ernie, you’ve served in advisory and leadership roles for organizations like WSAVA, the Morris Animal Foundation, and the Catalyst Council. How do you decide where to focus your time and influence when you’re clearly in high demand?

Yeah. And it is one of those things I think most folks have to be intentional about. And I’ll also say, Stacy, to anyone listening, the fact that I’m at a different stage in my career than I was 10 years, 20 years, even 30 years ago. I mean, I’ve been a veterinarian now for over 30 years, and so I would say that sometimes if you take on too many responsibilities too early in your career, you really can’t give it the proper time and energy that it needs. And so I’m very involved now with leadership roles, but that’s also because I have time, opportunity, and experience. So it’s different now. I see the world differently at 58 than I did at 38, and I think that wisdom really does help. But I do pick causes that are near and dear to my heart.

First and foremost, I believe strongly in international coalitions. So whether it’s obesity, or of course, small animal, with the WSAVA roles that I’ve taken on, I really want to make sure that we are understanding these are global impacts. In fact, my last book, the Clean Pet Food Revolution, was about the global impacts of pet food production on climate change. So I try to take a big lens and say what’s happening around the world? And so WSAVA obviously is near and dear. Morris Animal Foundation, I was super honored and thrilled to join several years ago. First, on the grant review, and obviously, we did a whole round of obesity-related research that we funded, which I was super proud to help bring that to Morris. And now, of course, I serve on the Animal Welfare board, so I review grant proposals to make sure that, from an animal welfare perspective, it’s okay. Catalyst Council, obviously obesity in cats is a big issue, and it’s even more serious issue in cats than it is in dogs, I would argue, simply because you’ve got diabetes.

So that direct link between excess adiposity, or visceral fat, and diabetes in cats is well founded. And that’s one of those areas where, wow, we can improve longevity and quality of life just immediately, by keeping cats at a healthier weight. So those are really… I try to follow passions when these opportunities come up. Stacy, as you know, sometimes the hardest thing is to say no. And I have to say no more and more these days, because I think there’s a lot of startups and things that want me to help out, but at the end of the day, it’s got to fuel my passion. I’ve got to have a link to it. I have to say, “Well, I think I can actually help you guys.” And the final thing is the timing. Sometimes timing is just awful, but you do have to learn to say no.

Yeah, good point. Well, since you’re on the Catalyst Council, we were talking before this show, a little bit about cats, and I keep reading that cat ownership is on the rise. What’s happening? What are you seeing right now in the world of cats?

Yeah. Well, we’re really lucky. John Ayers, the former CEO of IDEXX, and someone I’ve known and called a friend for over 20 years, he recently joined our board as well, at Catalyst Council. And John has brought not only renewed energy and vigor, because he is all about cats, wild cats, especially large cats, but now of course, back to domesticated cats. And so we’re doing some very interesting data analysis from around the country. And one of the things that… We have a State of the Cat report that we released last year. So again, you can look at some of the highlights in our press releases that we’ve launched publicly, and obviously, there’s a much bigger robust report that’s available to our sponsors. But we are now even taking a deeper dive, a much larger data set. In fact, the survey that we are undergoing currently will be the largest analysis of the feline market in the United States in history. So we’re super happy. And again, that wouldn’t happen without the expertise and passion of John Ayers, so I want to thank John publicly once again for that.

But the reality is when we look at vet visits across the country, they’re down overall. But if you look a little deeper into that, they’re more down on dogs than cats. So relativistically, cats are actually doing better. Obviously, it’s not where we want it to be, but it is where it is. And I think that as we see more and more folks bring cats into their home, and a lot of this had to do with COVID, but as we see more and more cat ownership rates, and the density of pet ownership continues to increase, we’re going to see, as soon as we can get some stability in our economy, I think you’re going to see a rocket ship of new visits from cat owners. So we’re super excited about that. There’s some interesting data. As I tell every veterinarian, every company that’s interested in this, and I know you do the same stuff, Stacy, it’s like, “Don’t ignore cats.”

Even if you look at it as a smaller spend total, the growth opportunities are tremendous. So again, I’m just very bullish on cats. And again, I have a personal interest because I know from an obesity perspective, they are more affected by obesity than dogs, and of course, the consequences can be even greater.

Yeah, so interesting. Well, Ernie, I know that you co-host the Veterinary Viewfinder podcast, where you tackle some of the profession’s toughest topics. What’s one conversation from the show that really stuck with you, and why?

Oh, wow. Great question, because we’ve got over nine years doing this now. I would say the conversations that we’ve had that resonate the most with Becky and I, really have to do with leadership, and both sides of that. So number one, how to be a better leader, whether you’re a manager, a team leader, an owner. So we do a lot of discussions about managing people and getting along in collaborative relationships with co-workers, so those are the conversations that I like the most. When Chernobyl, when that first happened, there was a veterinarian that I just wound up luckily connecting with, who had done some of the very first research of those Chernobyl dogs, and so that was really exciting. So we’ve had some interesting guests over the years, but by and large, the podcast is Becky and I talking about current events, like what’s happening today, this week.

And I think sometimes people are like, “You didn’t answer the question.” It’s like, “That wasn’t the point. The point was to raise the question and then give you our opinions, and allow you to talk about it amongst yourselves.” And so I think that we have raised some very controversial topics over the years. We’ve had all kinds of blowback. I will say that veterinarians eat their own. I’m kind of always surprised at how critical our colleagues can be, just for raising a question, not naming names or anything, but that’s always disappointing. But the reality is there’s not one episode, Stacy, that Becky and I would probably say, but I think it’s that overall theme of empowerment, of just doing better, of actually daring to ask these questions, and then trying to be bold in saying, “Look, we can do better.”

I’m a believer in the drop in the bucket, right? I don’t think you fill the bucket unless you have a lot of drops, and we’re just one drop. But again, if everybody just said, “Well, it’s pointless, you’re just a drop, you’re nothing.” If we all took that attitude, we would never fill the bucket up. And we’re just one small part, and if we can keep making a positive contribution, pushing the profession to be better, challenging some of our institutions and organizations and corporations, which again, those sometimes can get some criticism, but if we can continue to challenge ourselves, then we can be better.

Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, you are also a plant-based advocate, and you speak often about lifestyle medicine for both pets and people. How do you see the future of plant-based, or alternative diets, evolving in veterinary medicine?

Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve done almost everything you can do in veterinary medicine, and one of my businesses that we started was a plant-based dog food company, and this goes back to 2017 time period. And we raised a lot of money. I was very happy. I brought to market the world’s first high-protein plant-based dog food. So forever, I’ll be proud of that, just again, challenging the status quo, pushing, and really finding the limits of what pet food technology could allow, because making pet food is very complicated. So that was a great experience. It wasn’t great in the end, I wound up leaving the company. We wound up having some issues with other folks in the company, which we’ll leave it at that. But as many startups can attest, the company recently filed for bankruptcy, which just validated my leaving. But regardless, I do think that the world has to be more open-minded, like we have to say, “Okay, how does this impact our children and grandchildren’s future? What does the world look like?”

The planet cannot survive by producing this much meat. It just wasn’t designed to make enough pork and beef and chicken to feed this many humans, and so we’re going to have to get more creative. We’re going to have to, again, embrace technology and be more open-minded. I’ll tell you that around the world there are varying degrees of acceptance and sort of enthusiasm. We are seeing right now, a period of constriction in the United States. So obviously, this was a boom and now it’s retracted a bit. Obviously, there’s a lot of things going on in our politics and economics, and so forth. But I do see this as long-term, this will be part of the solution, for sure. Again, I think a lot of folks say, and look, I’ve done so much stuff on plant-based, where I’m used to the criticisms, but people say, “Oh, my gosh, Ernie wants to take our food choices away,” and that just couldn’t be further from the truth.

I just want to expand those choices, because I know that we’re going to have to have more creative solutions to feed future generations. Also, we’ve got to be mindful of the impacts we’re having on climate change. And so from a scientist’s perspective, which is what I would encourage every veterinarian to view themselves as, if you just look at the data, we’ve got to do better. And that’s one of those areas that I think we can. And aside from that, I’ve just always been very focused on how the physical health relates to the mental health. And so I’m one of those guys that early on, and this is age 30, bought in hook, line, and sinker, what some of those older folks were doing. These are folks that were… Go back to the early 1990s, they were 70 years old, and I was seeking those people out, both at Ironman races and just anywhere I could, and saying, “What do you do? How do you do this? What’s different? When you’re 75, I want to be able to do the Ironman when I’m 75 like you are.”

And you found a recurrent theme. And if they weren’t flat out plant-based, vegan, vegetarian, they were like, “I rarely eat meat.” Most of them, of course, never smoked, only drank alcohol occasionally. They weren’t teetotalers, but they didn’t also binge drink every weekend, or whatever. And so you found out that these people did strength training, endurance training, they did all these things, and I said, “Well, sign me up for that.” Because I had come from a background where maternal and paternal grandfathers had died younger than me, in their 50s, of good old fashioned southern heart disease. And I was like, “My father had already had open-heart surgery when he was not even 50 years of age,” so I was like, “Whatever those guys are doing, I’m going in the opposite direction,” which is again, why I became plant-based as soon as I could leave home.

Wow. Well, your background includes not just veterinary work, but entrepreneurship, public policy, and even a senate run. I remember when you ran for Senate. What role do you believe veterinarians should play in broader societal or policy discussions?

Yeah, that’s a really great question, Stacy. And I think that we have a public obligation, right? And so if you even go back to that political run, what actually drug me into the fight was we had a puppy mill legislation that was pending the North Carolina legislature. And my local senate representative, who happened to be a veterinarian, caught wind of some public statements I’d made in local newspapers, and I was in support of this. I was favoring this. I was actually an advocate, and I was trying to do anything I could to promote this bill to pass. And he took objection to that, and basically challenged me publicly. He said, “Well, if you don’t like what I’m doing, then why don’t you come take my seat?” I mean, literally, he said that. And I was like, “Well, you threw down the gauntlet, not me,” and so we were off to the races.

Now, unfortunately, I am of a political party that is in the minority in North Carolina, starts with a D and ends with a loss. But it was a great experience, and really the learning, and you know, Stacy, you’ve got a large family, I have two daughters. You know, sometimes you’re playing for the home team, right? And I felt like at that point, I was trying to teach my children that it’s really important sometimes to stand up for what you truly believe in. Now, obviously, the puppy mill bill was just one issue on a whole litany of complaints I had, and still do have, with our North Carolina government. But the reality is I wanted my children to see that, you know what, when your dad is pushed, he’s going to stand up for what he believes is right. And so as painful and expensive as that experience was, the reality is I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

And my wife would probably beg to differ, because this was, as we like to say, I mean, politics in the South, it’s not softball, it’s hardball. It is brass knuckles. There’s no holds barred, and so it was unpleasant. But again, I got a different type of education, and my kids got a different experience. So again, I do think that vets should insert themselves in these topics. I’m not saying you need to run for public office, but I do think you need to be aware of what’s happening. And honestly, this is how I got into television back in the day, because I was just paying attention to current events, to news stories, and breaking science stories, and so forth. And so I started writing a column for our local newspaper, which led to local TV appearances, which then led to national TV appearances, and ultimately, to being the show vet for the Rachel Ray Show for seven years, and Animal Planet Show. I mean, all those things kind led, because of my personal interest in being a local voice for animals.

I mean, it just sort of started that organically, and I encourage vets to always do that. I think sometimes in today’s age of social media, Stacy, I think some of those people look at the end. They say, “Oh, I want to be famous.” It’s like I never looked at it like that, I never considered myself to be famous, or whatever, I just said, “Wow, I’m here to share my opinions, my experience, my expertise on certain issues, and that’s what I’m going to do,” and it just sort of grew from there. And so I think that I would also encourage folks to always say, “What is the intent of this?” There’s a big influencer type of movement, and it’s like, “Okay, what is the real point of that?” And we’re really entering into an unusual time in our society and culture, where the pursuit of fame seems to be at an all time high, and I don’t know if that’s always healthy.

Definitely our kids, Stacy, grew up in the Instagram era. Our kids are both similar ages, and so you and I struggled when they were in middle school, when Instagram hits the scene. We didn’t even know what it was. But we have, I think you would probably agree, we have seen some of the side effects, the damaging effects of some of the social media. And so that’s where I would just, again, encourage veterinarians to be just cautious and use your power for good whenever possible.

Yeah, very good advice. Well, Ernie, you’ve been named Speaker of the Year at VMX and WVC, and you’re a sought after keynote speaker globally. What do you believe makes a message resonate most with today’s veterinary professionals?

Wow, I wish I knew the actual answer, because I would just keep doing it. I think that a lot of it is authenticity. I mean, I never wrote a word or gave a single lecture until I had actually owned a practice for eight years. So I came into this sort of reluctantly. In fact, I was drug into veterinary economics back in the day by the current editor, because we simply were doing things and getting a lot of attention really from drug reps, Stacy. I mean, the drug reps, they were going, “Holy smokes, there’s this little town called Calabash, North Carolina, you will not believe it.” And at one point, we were selling more dog food of a certain large company than anybody else in the state, and they’re like going, “What?”

I remember one drug company, we broke some records, and they just knew I was somehow diverting drugs. They sent a team down to audit us, which was so bizarre. And then the report back was like, “This guy’s doing things differently,” which then got me invited to do a whole lot of work for them consulting. So it was one of those things where authenticity, just being genuine, speaking from experience. And I think that I’ve never publicly said, or I’ve never written a word that I didn’t do, and I think that’s different. I think there’s a lot of folks that look around and observe and watch, and then report on that. And certainly, from a scientific standpoint, from obesity, I might report on research, but typically, if I’m doing something with communication and management, all I’m going to tell you is what I’ve done. It may work for you, it may not. But that authenticity, I think, is really what we need more of, and I think that we’ve lost some of that.

And I know that a lot of folks that are my age, and a little older, we’re looking and realizing that, “Wow, we had a very special time in which we were able to really experiment and do things that had never been done before.” A lot of today’s sort of, quote-unquote, innovations in management and practice are kind of just things that we did in the 80s and 90s, to be frank. And I mean, they’re doing them with technology, and that’s really the big difference. But I really think I got lucky. I caught the tail-end of this one period in vet medicine, where literally every week, I could try something different, and that had never been done. And so it was a very exciting time. And so again, I encourage people to continue to pursue, but continue to try to innovate, really push the boundaries.

And I see some people out there doing it. But I think with corporatization, Stacy, it’s really changed the mindset of folks and opportunities. So it’s just a different world, but I feel like that I’m at that stage in my career now, where I’ve got a keynote next week, down in Peru, and really, they asked me, “Well, tell us about the future. What do you see for the future of vet med?” And I have to reflect back on my past, and then try to somehow translate that and elevate it to the future, and it’s tough. It’s tough because we’ve got AI pressures, we’ve got, of course, we mentioned economics. We have shifts in accessibility to care, meaning that not accessibility to vet care, but accessibility on their own. That’s a big threat that we don’t often talk about out loud.

But Stacy, I mean, people can do so much for their own health and for their pet’s health, that can completely circumvent the vet. So we’ve got to be sensitive to that and understand why people are doing this, and again, meet them where they are in many instances, and try to do better. So yeah, I know that was a long way around the mulberry bush, but I think it’s just being authentic, and again, not being afraid to sort of tackle some of the tough things. I think there are slings and arrows that you have to be willing to take with that, Stacy, but I’ve kind of been willing to take it.

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Well, with your work on the Strategic Advisory Committee at WSAVA, and other global efforts, what are the biggest international trends or challenges in veterinary medicine right now?

Wow, that’s a great one. So I was brought on to WSAVA a couple of years back, a year and a half or so ago, as part of the Financial Advisory Committee. And one of the things that I think, not just me, but several people in those leadership roles recognized that there was not a Strategic Advisory Committee, a Steering Committee. There was no sort of committee that was looking at overarching goals, objectives, integrations within committee. I mean, WSAVA is really good at having expert committees and panels, but there wasn’t anything unifying it. So I was really honored to be tapped as the first chair of this inaugural Strategic Advisory Committee. And so we’re just now starting. In fact, I’ve just selected our first committee members, and we’ll have our first meeting in Rio for our annual congress for WSAVA. And for me, I’m looking at those things like we mentioned before, like AI, and trying to help with guidelines and guidance around AI usage.

Antimicrobial resistance is a big issue around the world. Drug accessibility. Again, we think of the drugs we have in the United States, but imagine you’re in Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s very different, and legally, it’s very different. We also are looking very heavily into mental health, because that’s not just a North American and Western Europe issue. I mean, mental health crisis is affecting professionals all around the world. And again, it’s not even just vet medicine, it’s all healthcare fields, for sure. So we’re trying to look at those types of things. I mean, I have a whole laundry list of things that I’m excited to tackle, but that’s really the big thing, is to say, “Okay, what are the issues that are affecting vets around the world?”

And we’re a lot more similar and universal than you might think. I mean, people say, “Oh, my gosh, it must be so different in Africa or in Asia than it is in the US or in Sweden.” And it’s like “Actually, a lot of the foundational issues are identical,” and that’s also kind of rewarding. But at this part of my career, I really am very interested in elevating veterinary medicine around the world as much as possible.

Well, that’s good. Well, between endurance athletics, meditation, podcasting, writing, and leading multiple initiatives, how do you personally stay grounded, and what advice would you offer to veterinary professionals facing burnout or people who feel overwhelmed?

Yeah. And I’m going to go right back to what we said earlier, Stacy, and it all is rooted, it’s grounded, founded in your physical well-being. And I would say like Socrates said, and I’m going to paraphrase him poorly again, but basically it is incumbent upon every man to understand physical training. And what he was trying to say was that, take care of your body and your body will take care of you. And so I got really lucky in my late-20s, and by age 30, I had solidly committed to saying, “I’m going to pursue this journey of physical well-being,” because I knew that was directly tied to mental well-being, emotional stability, and all that kind of stuff. And so I got lucky. I got lucky. I studied. I even took it, I became a certified personal trainer. It was an USA Athletics Ironman-accredited coach. I really kind of took it, because I wanted to learn a lot. That’s my nature, to learn. I’m curious.

And so I would say that if you’re worried about burnout, you need to first of all, examine your own daily habits. What are you eating? How are you exercising? What about sleep hygiene, right? I mean, restorative sleep is without a doubt, the super secret to all of this. And so you really have to then start to say, “Okay, I’m going to prioritize those things, because if I don’t prioritize sleep, for example, or diet and exercise, then I’m going to fail mentally, emotionally, intellectually.” And so those are non-negotiables in my life. There’s certain daily physical activity, meditation, I mean, those are just things I do every day. And it’s never been easier. Stacy, when I think back on this journey, 30-plus years, I mean we didn’t have tracking tools. I used to have spreadsheets, and I’d have notebooks, and all this stuff, and I really wish I could digitize some of that stuff, because I’d love to see how it was.

But we didn’t have Apple watches and smart rings, and all this kind of stuff, and so as that stuff has come online, that has really also allowed me to further hone in and focus on areas. I mean, if you go back to the very first Oura Ring, which I’m wearing one now, I was one of the first 1,000 people to get it. That was the Finnish group, those were great guys. I reached out to them. They did a Kickstarter campaign back when Kickstarter was all the rage. I’m grandfathered in. I get all the updates for free, and the Rings, and all that stuff. But that transformed the metrics that I could act on for sleep. I’d already done the Zio headband. We had done everything, I was just that guy. But once you really can dial in the physical, then the mental follows. And it doesn’t mean that I’m not stressed out, that I don’t encounter challenges, and that I don’t feel down, because I do. But my ability to cope and recover from those mental assaults, and those emotional challenges, is much greater.

And so I think that’s really the only difference, is that if you can fortify the physical, then again, the mental will be stronger as well.

What has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession up to now?

How slow progress occurs. I’m sure you’d agree, Stacy. It’s just like the writing is on the wall, and I’ve been involved in several high level things, including like the KPMG Megastudy with the AVMA. So you go back to ’99, and literally everything that I was saying then, it just fell on deaf ears. And so now, from 1999 to 2025, nothing happened except for people say, “Oh, yeah, we should be doing this stuff differently.” I mean, we were talking about mental health back then, staff leveraging, empowering your veterinary technicians, and so forth, title protection. I mean, all this stuff, we were discussing, at least at a very high level, that was just being ignored. And so really, the surprising thing is when I see obvious apparent solutions to imminent real problems and nobody acts on it, that’s been frustrating. I mean, I can’t tell you how many initiatives I’ve tried to kick off. And even obesity awareness.

I mean, Stacy, I would really argue that it took us a solid 12 to 15 years before obesity became like, “Oh, yeah, you’re right. They are sick.” And still, a lot of vets would disagree that it’s a disease, which confounds me. The science obviously clearly supports it. And every major medical organization, including WHO, around the world, of course, endorses it as a disease. So it’s just the slowness of progress. And in defense, because I love my profession, and I love healthcare and medicine and science, in defense, we need to be skeptical. We need to make sure things have evidence and are verified. So we don’t just adopt things overnight, but sometimes you’re looking back 20 years, and you’re going, “Wow, we missed a lot of opportunity. We really should have acted sooner.” But again, that’s the nature of our profession.

So to the newer folks, and what’s really challenging, is because AI is happening so rapidly, there’s not a single person on this planet, five years ago, that could tell you that we would have all of these major AI models that moms and dads around the country can use to do their kids’ homework. Nobody could have predicted that, especially the rapidity and penetration of those tools. And so for us to even try to project how AI will look and feel, we don’t have the capacity to imagine that in 10 years. There’s no one on this planet that I trust will get this right. We are lousy at predicting the future. And so that’s the one thing I would say, is that no matter how you feel, how quickly things are happening, we do owe a debt to science and empiricism, and we want to make sure that we, as veterinary professionals, use these tools in a very measured, and again, evidence-based way.

And that’s one of the things, again, at WSAVA, I know they’re getting sick of hearing me talk about this, but we want to try to help create some of these guidance and guardrails, because I think that these tools will enhance the profession. They’ll enhance society, and even human life and animal life, but the reality is we’ve got to be deliberate and intentional in saying, “Okay, this is how we’re going to use it.” And right now, Stacy, if you look at AI, again, just as an example, there’s literally very little government oversight. The UK, and many countries in Europe, are starting desperately to try to say, “Hey, we’re going to limit and regulate,” but right now in the US, this is just a free for all, and that does concern me.

Yeah, I can understand that. My son is the president of the AI club or group at the University of Oklahoma, so he’s right into that learning, studying AI.

Well, Stacy, again, we have children similar. My daughter is second year of law school. She took two copyright classes this last semester. She’s a 2L, a second-year law student, and both of them were exclusively on AI and their impacts on copyright law and music and art and literature and IP. And it’s like, it’s just so fast and so broad, and nobody knows.

That’s a big topic.

Yeah.

Well, you mentioned our profession is slow to change. How have you seen the veterinary profession change in some positive ways over the years?

Yeah, two big things. Number one, the recognition that mental health is a priority, right? I mean, this was when I graduated in 1992, and certainly, when I was in college, I mean, this was not even a discussion. This wasn’t even a consideration. And when it was a consideration, it was only viewed negatively, like, “You’re weak. You’re a failure somehow,” right? And so there was no support mechanism whatsoever. And so I’m super happy to see mental health be at the forefront of discussions. Again, we even mentioned at WSAVA, I mean we’re really embracing this for an international scale as well. The other thing too, that again, might be an unpopular opinion, but it’s pay. Veterinarians make more money today. Veterinary technicians make more money today than they did 30 years ago. I mean, this is a different profession.

Now, we can argue, “Well, that’s the economics of today are different. The inflationary pressures are different, cost of living.” You can say all of those things, but the fact remains that Morgan Stanley just released a paper, I shouldn’t say a paper, a study, early this year that showed that veterinary prices had gone up over 60% over the last decade, and correspondingly, vet salaries had gone up like 30 or 40%. So I do think that’s positive, Stacy. I mean, you’re in the recruitment area, so I mean, I know that if you look back at your ledger sheet from 10, 15 years ago, the starting salary for a vet or a vet tech, and you look at it today, I’m sure sometimes you have to be just smacking your head, going, “Wow, that’s a big difference.”

People sometimes won’t even believe this, but back in 1997, when I started placing veterinarians, some were making $25,000 a year back in 1997.

Sure. Yeah, my first, I was making less than $30,000 in 1992.

Yeah.

And that was just the job. And again, and Stacy, I think the other thing that is lost, that amount of money in 1992, didn’t put me up there with human physicians or pharmacists, or anything. I mean, it was like, “Hey, you’re a vet. You make a little bit of money. You don’t make a lot of money. You’re not destitute.” And I think that that has really changed. Again, that’s positive. We need to do a lot more work on the veterinary technician and support staff side of things. That is another big issue and a gap, but it takes time. But I am happy with the trend, because, Stacy, you and I would be having a very different conversation, in fact, we probably would be doing very different things if the salaries had remained stagnant or even declined.

Yeah, it’s very positive that the salaries have increased over the years. Well, I know you’re going to Peru to talk about this, and maybe you’ll give us a preview here. What does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Yeah, I’m still bullish. I mean, I think this is a great profession, and it is always unfair to ask folks like me, because we are implicitly biased towards positivity. I mean, I’m an optimist by design and trade and experience. I do think that things get better over time. So the overarching theme of this one particular thing, and actually, I’m super excited. This is a memorial keynote for a friend and colleague, Dr. Ellen Colloran, and she passed away suddenly, a year or so ago,. And so this is in memory of her. Incredible feline practitioner, I’m sure many of your listeners are familiar with some of the great work that she did. But regardless, it is about the future. I do talk about some of the pressures around, again, declining visits and increasing costs.

So vets, again, to make up for lost revenue due to transactions or appointments, they’re just hiking up their fees. Obviously, they’re doing that response also to inflation around the world, but that is not a sustainable strategy. And so I do talk a little bit about maybe ways to help buffer that, for sure. I talk about, again, the importance of expanding the roles of support staff, particularly veteran nurses and technicians around the globe, to allow them to actually do the things that allow us to flourish and to thrive as veterinarians. So I think that we can do a lot more to leverage our support staff to enhance that. There’s a big issue with economic debt. And while that is a bit of a US issue, we are starting to see that around the world in different increments. And so the debt load is one aspect, but in many countries, actually getting a storefront, so to speak, to open a practice would be a different barrier than it would be in the United States.

So there’s a lot of economic pressure and headwinds to just actually being a vet around the world. There are some regulations that are changing that I’ll talk about, particularly around… We mentioned about antimicrobial resistance, but access to drugs is becoming an increasing issue for vets around the world, for sure. And then of course, there are political issues. In some parts of the world, there are restrictions on what animals you can own, how you feed them. I mean, there’s a lot of things that have to do with theology and politics, and so it gets complicated on a global scale. So again, I’m bullish overall. I think that AI will definitely be assistive. I’m really excited about some of the advances in monoclonal antibodies, because we’re going to have a whole series of drug interventions that are going to be amazing. There’s tremendous work being done on genetic editing.

In fact, there’s just been recent news of a child in the United States, that was one of the first CRISPR babies, so to speak, where they went in and had a congenital defect, and they were able to actually change that child’s genome and stop the disease process. So we’re going to see that. We have a pig that is a disease-resistant now, again, a genetically-modified livestock that is approved for food in the United States. So again, tremendous scientific advances, and I just hope that that will continue.

Wow. Well, what has been the biggest challenge you’ve encountered during your career?

Yeah, I think that is a tough question, Stacy. Because I’m a Gen Xer, I expect challenge. I expect adversity. I did not ever expect there to be anything given to me, and that’s just because we were at a time. Stacy, I’m older, but some tough times growing up as a child, and then certainly what we entered into the workplace, so I expect everything to be a challenge. I guess some of the issues that we’re seeing now are beyond me. The corporatization, that is a different level of pressure on individuals. I kind of was before that happened, benefited from it, and now I’m able to look at it on the other side. So I would say that that is a form of adversity, but overall, I don’t really view that I’ve had that type of adversity in my life. I just view these are challenges, this is to be expected.

And maybe, Stacy, that’s that mindset, right? That I don’t really look at it as the world trying to destroy me, I just look at it, these are things I got to deal with. It’s just normal, right? It’s not me, it’s just this is the life. And I think that maybe it’s that acceptance that keeps you motivated and positive, because I mean we could all make an argument, “I’ve had this thing happen, it was tragic and terrible and awful, and this other thing. And then on top of that…” We all have, right? There’s been loss and pain and disease and illness and death and trauma, we’ve all got those things. But at the end of the day, I do believe that I’ve been able to persevere simply because I go, “Yeah, that’s normal. I mean, nothing special about it. Everybody’s life sucks at some point and sometimes.”

I don’t know if that answers your question, but I do think it’s a healthy mindset not to always dwell on those things. Years ago, when I was a student, I did an externship, and the owner of the practice one day came in, and he was like, “I don’t get it. Every day you come in here, you’re smiling, cracking jokes.” He goes, “What do you do? Do you go home at night and scream into the pillow for an hour?” And I didn’t get it, right? I thought he was joking, but later I found out he was very serious. No, I don’t, I just sort of let this stuff go, and I just don’t dwell on it, and just move on.

Yeah, it’s how you work through those things. Everybody has adversity. Life has its highs and lows, and it’s how you work through that.

Yeah, yeah.

I had a roommate in college, I’d get up in the morning, I had a nickname in, it was either eighth or ninth grade, and my nickname was Smiley. But I had a roommate in college that said, “Could you stop waking up so happy every morning.” Because I wake up and I’m just ready, and I’m ready to go, and I’m happy. And she said, “Could you just not be so happy in the morning?” Ernie, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

Do exactly what you’re doing, trust your instincts. Do not let anybody… Every time you encounter your criticism, just keep going. And I’ll tell you, there are a whole lot of folks that are going to tell you why you can’t, why you shouldn’t, why it won’t work. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, a lot of diverse things. We mentioned some of the business things, but I was in a successful band, and I’ll tell you, that was an incredible experience. All through college, we wound up having a top-20 hit on the college music journal, the CMJ, from Billboard.

That’s amazing.

Yeah. We were touring all over, records and video. We were on MTV for a short period.

Wow.

But let me tell you, if you want to get criticized, go into music or art or writing, and I did all of those. So it is great on one hand, to experience rejection on a regular basis, and then to be able to persevere. And so the advice I would say is just keep doing exactly what you’re doing, because you’re going to end up exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Well, what message do you wish you could teach everyone listening today?

Well, I think I would just say stay curious and stay engaged. I think that when people either think they have it figured out, when people stop trying to learn or discover new things, that’s really the beginning of the end. So everybody I know and admire, that’s older than me, they have stayed relevant. And I don’t mean relevant in the popular sense, but they’ve stayed relevant in terms of what’s happening in their areas of interest. So they know what’s happening in current events, they know what’s happening in science, they know what’s happening in technology, or whatever the thing is. And that is the one bit of advice I try to instill on my kids, is to remain very open-minded, remain very curious, and always seek to learn more, to do more. Because the only thing that’s going to limit you is your own lack of confidence in yourself.

Such good advice. Ernie, do you have a key book in your life that has impacted you the most?

Wow, great question. I get this a lot, and I ought to have prepared answer. I will say I was very open to all those self-help books, and it started naturally. My father, when I was a little kid, gave me a copy of Lead The Field, that book by… I say book, but it was a cassette tape version of that, by Earl Nightingale, really. And of course, when I was a little kid, I didn’t appreciate it. In high school, I didn’t appreciate it. But then when I got to college, and then later in life, I kept rediscovering little nuggets in there. And so Lead the Field actually directly led me to one of the books that I would recommend everybody read, although I know the younger folks don’t tend to like it, but that is a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And this guy was actually paid to discover the secrets of the most successful folks in America at the turn of the century, and it’s a fantastic book.

A great book.

It really is. And I know that it’s dated, and I know that the stories may not be as contemporary, but man, just full of wisdom and learnings. And then I’ll tell you from Think and Grow Rich, I’d have to then go to one of the folks I found personally inspiring, and actually really influenced me before I was a public speaker, to be a public speaker, and that was Zig Ziglar. And a lot of the listeners are not going to be familiar with him, but he is one of… They used to call him the greatest salesman in America, but he wrote a book that I read early in my veterinary career. This is long before I wrote or did anything publicly, and it was called See You at the Top, and I always recommend that. It’s the slim little paperback, and it’s full of these anecdotes from Zig’s selling career.

But it is, again, if you can separate the cheesiness from it and take in, actually, the lessons, you’ll learn a lot from it, for sure. From a health perspective, I got early into Ken Cooper, Dr. Kenneth Cooper. And for those of you not familiar, you definitely need to look him up. He is a remarkable individual. But he is the guy who actually from Harvard, who coined aerobics. So he’s the guy who kicked off the aerobic craze in the 70s, and so he was the first person to say, “Wow, the heart and the energy systems that are engaged vary.” So different heart rates, aerobics versus anaerobic, right? They’re engaging. So he was one of the guys to first uncover that, which is remarkable if you think about this. So his research in the late-60s to early to mid-70s really was foundational. And Ken Cooper, of course, has written a bunch. He’s written a bunch of books with his son. He’s just a remarkable physician.

And then that’ll lead you to the book that I still refer to, probably the one that impacted my wife and I the most, and that was Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman’s book, the Fantastic Voyage. And we got all into that, because Kurzweil, of course, this is Ray Kurzweil, one of the greatest engineers of all time. He invented the synthesizer. These guys are just a remarkable genius, and still is completely relevant. He’s huge with Meta and AI, and I mean, he’s just… This guy’s unreal. But he wrote this first book called Fantastic Voyage, because at that time he had lost his father, and he was like, “Holy smokes, I want to live long enough to actually see all this technology.” Again, he talks about the convergence, we are actually artificial intelligence meets organic life. And so he was like, “How do I live that long?”

And so he connected with a guy named Terry Grossman, who was one of the OGs in the longevity medicine space. And they’ve written a couple of books, but Fantastic Voyage just really was one of those books that I keep recommending to this day. It’s a tough read. It’s not like something that you’re going to enjoy reading, because it’s prescriptive. But again, it goes into the science, a lot of the supplements, a lot of the methods to meditation, sleep, and exercise that I still ascribe to. So those are just some books. I mean, there’s a lot of books that I’m always reading, but those are those impactful books to me.

Well, you mentioned Zig Ziglar. I used to listen to Zig Ziglar on my way to and from work, almost every day, when I was first starting out my career.

Same.

Fantastic content.

Yeah. And Stacy, I don’t know if you’ve ever got to see him speak. Every time he was anywhere within four or five-hour drive, we would go see him. He’s just a phenomenal, inspirational, charismatic speaker. I learned so much from him. But again, it was just he’s a great story, a great American success story, and I think he is one of those folks that not enough people know about.

Yeah, I would agree. Well, Ernie, you’ve got the mic, what is one thing that you want to share with our listeners of the People of Animal Health podcast before you drop the mic today?

I think the main thing is just remain positive. I mean, we’re in a period of time, and I’m talking to my kids about this constantly. They’re like your age, we’ve got one that just graduated undergrad, we’ve got one that’s starting her third year of law school in the fall, so they’re concerned about the future. Like, “Oh, my gosh, dad, it seems like the world is falling apart before our very eyes, and I don’t even know if there’ll be a future.” And so I think historically speaking, humanity perseveres, we get through it. And we typically, even the worst of times, like the Dark Ages, on the other side of it, there’s a renaissance. And so no matter how bad it seems today, there will be a bright tomorrow.

And so you just really have to try to center yourself, and say, “I’m going to keep trying to do a positive contribution. I’m going to keep trying to make the world a little bit better. I’m going to make it better for myself, for my family, for the folks I work with, for the patients I serve,” whatever it might be. But you’re just going to have to keep your head down and keep working, and it will get better.

We need more positivity.

Yeah, I think so. I think it’s easy to get lost in the news cycle. I do worry about all the social media doom scrolling. I do wish that, Stacy, I don’t know how you feel, but that’s the one thing, if I could go back in time, I would take my middle school daughters and I would say, “You know what, all the social media stuff, let’s just stall that for a while.” And I do think that parents today, really even have it harder. We were just in that discovery. We were all ignorant, so we have an excuse, because nobody knew. But these days, you have it harder because I think the science is starting to stack up against social media, especially introducing it into young children. We’re talking like 10, 12 years of age, very formative periods of life.

So that’s the one thing that if you’re a veterinary professional today, I would just say really critically evaluate the time you’re spending on some of these social media platforms. I don’t think they’re social anymore, I think they’re just critical. And so if it’s not leaving you feeling better, then read a book, watch a movie, I don’t know. But I do worry about some of the pressure that social media exerts on folks.

Well, it can be a time suck, and it also can give people a warped sense of reality.

Mm-hmm. And just make you feel inadequate, and that’s not healthy either, because that’s not true. You are you, and you are unique, and you are special and valuable. And I don’t care what influencer out there is saying what they look or do, and a lot of that stuff, you got to really be careful and not ingest too much of it.

So true. Everyone’s here for a purpose and go live out your purpose, make the world a better place.

Yeah.

Ernie, thank you so much for being here. I enjoyed our conversation today.

Stacy, I thank you so much. You’ve been a wonderful friend and colleague all these years. You do amazing work. I mean, you have been one of the singular voices really, in telling veterinarians there are great opportunities out there. I mean, you were doing this at a time when folks didn’t even think about it. They were just like, “Oh, look in [inaudible 01:04:48], I find a job, and I go.” And you are actually telling people way before it became vogue, that “Hey, let’s do better. Let’s actually investigate, and let’s see if this is a good fit.” And I can’t imagine the hundreds and thousands of people that you’ve positively impacted, so thank you.

Well, there are so many opportunities for veterinarians out there, and veterinarians are incredible people, it’s a great profession. And Ernie, I so appreciate our friendship.

We’re lucky to have you.

Thank you.