Episode #73 | Dr. Rustin Moore

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 Pursell, 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 on our show, we are joined by Dr. Rustin Moore, a visionary leader in veterinary medicine, and current dean of the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Since 2015, Dr. Moore has guided the college through remarkable growth and innovation, building on decades of service as a clinician, educator, researcher, and advocate. An equine health expert and passionate champion of the human animal bond. He has led disaster response efforts, advanced One Health Initiatives, and inspire countless students and colleagues. His book, Unleashing the Bond, explores the profound connections between people and animals. Rustin, welcome to The People of Animal Health Podcast, and thank you for being my guest today.

Well, thank you so much, Stacy, for having me, and I look forward to spending the time with you.

I’m looking forward to it as well. I would love to start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in the Appalachian Hills of West Virginia, very proudly. A proud native of West Virginia. And what was it like growing up? I grew up on a small, what I call, hobby farm of about 45 acres. My parents did not farm, but I did. And I had about every imaginable animal possible from a pig to multiple cattle, and horses and ponies and rabbits and chickens and ducks and a whole lot more.

Well, that’s interesting that you were farming, but your family didn’t. How did you get into farming?

Well, our neighbors, they had day jobs but also they farmed, primarily cattle and sheep. And so I got exposure there. And then my great uncle and my maternal step-grandfather raised cattle as well. So I was around it from a very young age, and then I just was drawn to it. And so that’s what I did on the land that we had.

So at what point in time, and why did you decide to become a veterinarian?

I don’t remember the exact age, but it was probably by six or seven years old, which is not unusual for veterinarians. My mom tells a slightly different story when she was alive. She would say that I told her I wanted to be a farmer and she told me, “Well, you should be a veterinarian so you can afford to farm.” And whether that’s true or not, I don’t really remember. But I know from a very, very young age, I wanted to be a veterinarian and I never deviated from that.

Well, you have served as Dean of Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine since 2015, and your term has now been extended through 2027. Looking back, what do you consider the most transformative changes you’ve led at the college during this time?

Well, let me first start off by saying, I’m blessed by having an incredible leadership team and incredible faculty and staff and students. So anything that we have accomplished has been because of a very large group of people that are dedicated and committed to doing whatever these initiatives were. Having said that, I think one of the most profound ones is how we have completely readdressed our curriculum. We were one of the first, I think the first, to fully incorporate the competency-based veterinary education framework that was developed and adopted by the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. We started in 2017 with a curricular review and then a curricular map, and then completely redesigning the entire curriculum with a competency-based focus. And through that, we have four core threaded courses, one on clinical skills, one on integrative problem solving, one on communication and collaboration, and one on professional development.

And those are foundational. And then there’s, of course, the medical ones, the courses there as well. Early and frequent hands-on experience really helps build confidence. And our spectrum of care approach to the curriculum is to make sure our students, when they graduate, become confident and competent veterinarians that can practice across the spectrum, meeting each client and patient where they are, both on a socioeconomic scale, but also for whatever the purpose and use of the animal is. I’d say, another transformative thing or something that we’ve put a lot of effort and resources in are making sure we support our students. So we have two embedded counselors here, financial aid advisor, office of teaching and learning, peer tutoring system. In the last two years, we started what’s called the College Community Cupboard. We know that about 15% of students here and probably everywhere are food insecure. And the other part of that is really working on scholarships. We’ve increased our scholarships derived from philanthropy from $370,000 10 years ago to $3.8 million this current year.

Wow.

And our goal is to be able to award each student the equivalent of one year of in state tuition, which would be $37,000. And we’re getting there, but we’re not quite there yet.

Well, that is incredible. Well, now you have held multiple leadership roles in academia from department chair to executive director of the Veterinary Medical Center. How have these experiences shaped your vision for veterinary education and training today?

Well, I think my vision goes back to when I was actually a faculty member doing research, doing clinical service, and teaching both veterinary students and graduate students. And that prepared me for the department chair position, which was really focused mostly on the support of faculty and advanced training students like residents and interns. Overseeing the veterinary medical center as the executive director really shed even further light into how we needed to make sure we operated a hospital with a very large caseload, with efficiency that could do the most advanced things while also making sure we had an opportunity to educate veterinary students on kinds of cases they would see most likely when they graduate. Which is why as transitioning into the dean position, we really focused on the idea of spectrum of care and general practice with a standalone spectrum of care clinic where our students in the first three years rotate through on shifts to reinforce things they’ve learned in the clinical and professional skill center, but also other aspects.

They get to know the clinic from a client services, from a veterinary technician, veterinary assistant, from a financial perspective, so that when they’re in the fourth year, they can walk in and be the doctor. And the actual faculty are the coaches that are watching and observing through observation rooms. So that really helped shape that. And so, I think all of those things have really led to some of the things that we’ve been able to accomplish here at the college, and then also some of the things that we’ve helped others do at the national level with other veterinary schools or even through the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, which I am currently in my role as immediate past president.

So now, your clinical and research interests focus heavily on equine health, especially lameness and [inaudible 00:09:32] colic. What drew you to this specialty and what advances are most exciting in equine medicine right now?

Well, my career was focused on equine health, both research, teaching, and clinics. And I left that 18 years ago when I came back here because I needed to focus on being an administrator, leader, et cetera. What drew me into it originally was the people that I was around. When I came to veterinary school, I now describe it as I wanted to be a Appalachian version of James Herriot, a country vet. That’s all I knew. And as I got introduced to instructors and disciplines, my interests changed. By the time I got to graduating, I decided I wanted to go into most likely equine internal medicine. And I went to the University of Georgia as an intern, and I returned to Ohio State as a surgery resident. And it’s really because of the people that I met at Georgia, they were all great people, both the internists and the surgeons, but somehow I got inspired by the surgeons.

And not only was I inspired by them to do a surgery residency, I was inspired by them to do a PhD, which is how I got into the research piece. So we’ve come a long way from those days in terms of how we treat horses for colic or laminitis or other things. There’s always things that we have to continue to do, but the prognosis for horse with colic these days is way higher than it would’ve been, and also more expensive, way higher than it was back 30, 40 years ago. So that’s what led me to it, and that’s what keeps me interested in the sort of the tripartite part of what clinician scientists do. They teach, they do clinical service, and they do research.

Now, Rustin, you’ve been involved in more than 120 funded projects and published extensively. Which of your research efforts do you feel have had the greatest real world impact for veterinarians, animals, or public health?

I actually don’t know that a lot of my prior research… I mean, I did it hoping that there would be impact. I guess, I question probably what impact it’s had. And I hope that my publication, which isn’t necessarily research-based, but some of my publications around health and wellbeing, around creating an environment where everybody can be successful and thrive because they feel they belong, et cetera. And my more recent work on publishing in the human-animal bond, I hope those have the impact. I think they will have had or will have more impact than some of my funded scientific research.

Well, let’s talk about that, your book. And your TED Talk, The Power of a Pet resonated wildly. And then you do have a book Unleashing the Bond and you’re about to release your second book as well. What continues to surprise you most about the human-animal connection, and why do you think it’s so powerful? And I’d also love to hear the inspiration behind the book.

Well, thank you. So back in 2015 when I became the dean, the university announced their annual TEDx series, and I was hoping somebody from the college would submit to try to get to be part of that. And I encouraged people, and nobody did it. And so the night before the deadline or the night of the deadline, I wrote an application to do a talk on the human animal bond. At that point, it was not titled The Power of a Pet. That’s the title I gave it later. So that process really set off in me an exploration of what the research was, and that was 10 years ago. And I’ve kept up with that field now, not doing my own research, but actually following the research of others, including those who are funded by the Human Animal Bond Research Institute and others.

In some ways, it’s amazing to me what has been discovered, and it’s also probably more incredible what hasn’t yet been discovered about the why. We know a lot of science about it, which we can certainly talk about more later if you’d like. But what surprises me is the multiple ways the human-animal connection can impact individuals, families, communities, schools, whether it’s something in mental health, physical health, loneliness, all sorts of things. That’s why I am so intrigued and wanting to bring that information to life for people, sharing history science and powerful stories, and weaving it all together into something that will help raise awareness among the general public, certainly those who are animal lovers, animal owners, but really everyone.

And feel free to talk about more of the science behind that because that is intriguing.

Well, for example, we know that whenever one interacts with an animal, and it doesn’t have to be a companion animal, but let’s say it’s a daughter, a cat, whether you look in and stare into the eyes of your dog, or you pet your cat, or the cat’s laying on your lap purring or whatever, your body is responding to that. Your body is releasing biochemicals or hormones like oxytocin, like dopamine, like serotonin. Those are all feel good, love hormones, connecting type of hormones. Your body also decreases the production and release of cortisol, a stress hormone. We also know, for example, that therapy dogs that go into a hospital, an elder care facility, a school, whatever it is, and I heard this over and over from people I interviewed who have therapy dogs. They would say, “When we go into the room, my dog knows who needs her or him.” And I said, “Okay, tell me more about that.”

And they would say, they’ll walk right by three people and go to somebody over here. And it always really amazed me like, “Okay, how’s that happening?” And I don’t know that it’s known for sure yet, but one of the things that we know is that now research has been shown where dogs can actually smell cortisol on the breath or through the skin of people-

Wow.

… as of a volatile organic compound. Okay, so probably if those people are stressed, they’re probably releasing cortisol, and that could be the reason those dogs know how to find them. That last part is me surmising. That hasn’t been definitively shown to my knowledge yet. Those are just some examples, but we know that dogs… Let’s say search and rescue dogs, when they’re searching for human remains, my classmate, Dr. Kim Stewart, who lives in Bryan, Texas, has a dog, Shamus, who has found the remains of 10 people.

Wow.

Some buried under the ground, some submerged completely in water, some in ravines and other things. And that training is based on them to be able to detect the scent of decomposing human flesh. And the flesh could be completely gone and all there’s the bones. And I know maybe that’s a little graphic, but it’s amazing that they can differentiate and walk right by a decomposing animal. They go right by it and they’re smelling for a certain scent. But going back to the bond, the bond is built between Kim and Shamus through trust, through positive reinforcement. And so when they’re not working, that dog’s a companion, but it also loves to work, has a lot of drive, ball drive. You can train dogs either on drive for a ball or a toy, or for food. And different dogs have more drive than others for certain things.

Wow. What advice would you give to pet owners about receiving veterinary care through the lens of the human animal bond?

I think that is an amazing question. And the reason I say that is because I’ve given presentations to veterinarians on how I believe we should practice and deliver care through the lens of the human animal bond. So I think first of all, a client or a pet owner should feel completely comfortable and confident about being open to the veterinary healthcare team in either sharing information or asking questions. And we as a veterinary profession have to make sure we don’t either judge them or give off the appearance or perception that we’re judging them. The human-animal bond, I believe is universal, yet no two bonds are the same. So we need to be very open as veterinary professionals to try to get a sense of what that bond is built on and what holds it together, what can we do? And so as a pet owner, let’s say that a veterinarian presents to you a diagnostic plan for your dog with X.

Feel free to say, “Well, are there other alternatives? What are the alternatives and what are the costs, and what are the likely outcomes depending on what these are?” And this is what we refer to as spectrum of care.

What we need to do as a profession is we need to meet the client and the patient where they are. We need to let them know everything that’s possible, but not do it in a way that the client feels like if they don’t do this one that someone might refer to as a gold standard, that it’s less than. We try not to even use those phrases gold standard. Here are five acceptable ways we can treat your dog or your cat, or approach this. Option one is this, this is what it entails. This is the approximate cost. This is what you can expect in terms of outcome, and right on up or down the line. The example I use is a dog with a cranial cruciate injury tear.

There’s multiple ways you can do that. If you have a three-year-old Border Collie agility dog that you want to return to be athletic and competitive, you’re probably going to present all of these. But say, if you want your dog to go back and be competitive, a TPLO is probably the best way to do that. If this is a 12-year-old Boston Terrier couch potato, which is great, still the bond’s still strong, but a TPLO isn’t not… I’m not saying it’s wrong, it may not be the best option depending on what the client expects, needs, and how the dog is.

That makes sense.

It’s really about creating that openness to have honest, open conversation without judgment. I will also say that I would like to encourage pet owners to be kind when they go into the veterinary office. Veterinarians and technicians and others, you don’t know the last case they saw. The last case they saw could have been a horrific situation that required euthanasia. And maybe it was a young dog that otherwise could have had a good life, but it was either really serious or the clients before them didn’t have the funds. So it’s a very emotional job anyway. And when a client gets upset and starts taking it out on veterinarians or their staff or they go to social media, that’s not helping anyone. That’s not going to help them, that’s not going to help their pet. If they’re doing it while they’re at the veterinary practice, it’s definitely not going to help your pet. In fact, you’re wasting people’s time.

Let them do what they need to do after you’ve had a conversation. It also would definitely delay them in getting to the next patient. So just be kind and in turn, hopefully, things will work out. None of us are perfect, not every case goes the way that the textbook says it might, and that’s not because anyone did anything wrong. It’s just every case is different.

Such good advice, be a good human. And at the same time, what advice would you give to pet owners about how to be engaged and informed through the lens of the human-animal bond?

Yes. I think it’s really amazing to be… I would say, the majority of pet owners are very astute, and they know their pet better than anybody else. They know if there’s something off and maybe it’s 2% off or 5% off, maybe it didn’t eat its food like it normally does, or maybe it’s when it defecated, the feces was slightly different in consistency. So it’s important to share those things when you go in, but also be… And it goes back to some of what I just said, engaged in asking what else is new, what should I be doing? I know last year we vaccinated for this or we did this and that for heartworm. Be inquisitive and ask.

People aren’t going to get upset if you say, “Well, my neighbor said that their veterinarian told them about this new X, Y, or Z. Could you tell me about that?” But for example, if you’re a person that has an outdoor dog and you’re an outdoor person and you’re out in the woods and all these other things, maybe your dog should be vaccinated for leptospirosis, Lyme disease, et cetera. Whereas a dog that lives on the 16th floor of a high rise in Chicago probably doesn’t need to be vaccinated for those. Now, I’m not a small animal veterinarian. I am not giving advice on any of that. But what I’m saying is every patient is different, and asked about your patient and those specific circumstances in which your patient or… Sorry, your pet lives. And if someone doesn’t ask, tell them because we’re not going to remember to ask every single question, but feel free to really engage in that conversation.

That’s great advice. Now, I know you have been an advocate for the One Health approach linking animal, human, and environmental health. Can you share an example of how this framework is being applied in practice at the Ohio State University or beyond?

Yes. So yes, we definitely embrace the One Health concept, the idea that animal health, human health, and environmental health are inextricably linked. I’ll give you a couple of examples. One is cancer. People get cancer, animals get cancer. People and dogs get some of the very similar cancers, and those cancers and dogs behave very similar biologically or in response to treatment as do those in people. So we have a comparative and translational oncology program with a very robust clinical trials program where we are evaluating new potential therapies, and we’re not typically using the type of experimental design where somebody’s getting a placebo and somebody’s getting the drug. We’re giving sort of whatever we think as the best treatment available for that cancer now, and the other one may be that plus the new one as an example. So there’s advantages for that dog or that patient because maybe it will respond better.

There’s typically advantages to the client in addition to what I said for the patient, because there’s usually some financial assistance with the care, and it also could help the next dog or people. Because many of these drugs that are in the pipeline for human cancer, most of them that go through cell cultures and lab animals like mice and rats, most of those never make it into a human. Lots of money wasted, lots of time wasted. But we know if it works in a dog, it has a lot better chance of working in a person, and we can get it in a dog much sooner than a person after safety trials have been done. That’s one example. Another example I’ll give is avian influenza. Avian influenza for years and years and years, although we were concerned it could happen, was pretty much confined to birds, migratory birds, wild migratory birds, and then getting into domestic poultry, turkeys, layers, et cetera.

Well, two years ago, dairy cattle started getting sick in Texas and Oklahoma. And after some period of time, someone just sort of said, “Oh, I wonder if we should test them for avian influenza.” Turns out that’s exactly what they had. Not only was it impacting the dairy cattle, not killing them, some of them, but a lot of them just getting really sick and their milk production going down for a period of time. But cats on the farm started dying, like all cats on those farms. And now, it’s been diagnosed in people. That is an example of no different than COVID of infectious diseases that can spread from animals to people. And usually, 70% or so of the emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases start in animals and move to people. We are doing research and we are doing clinical things in both infectious disease and cancer here that are a One Health approach to those, including ticks.

In Ohio, there are now five medically important ticks, which means they can spread disease to animals or people. 20 years ago, there was one species in Ohio. So they’re migrating here, they’re carrying disease, and we’re monitoring, measuring surveillance, and actually testing ticks to see what they’re carrying. And that’s a way to sort of more modify or customize a plan of treatment depending on… Let’s say, you had a dog and you found a tick on it. You can have the dog or on yourself, you can take the tick off, have it speciated, and then have it tested for that battery of infectious diseases that that species can carry. And know whether or not you should get started on prophylactic treatment or not.

Well, those are some great examples of the One Health approach and how the Ohio State is involved with that. Well, as a board member of the DVMC, how do you see the profession changing to better reflect and serve diverse communities, and what more needs to be done?

Yeah, so our profession is one of the least diverse of all. And you can pretty much say that in all respects of the word diversity. And I know in today’s world that word is not allowed to be used or other things for a variety of reasons, or in whether it’s related to federal or state law or statutes, et cetera. What I’m getting at when I talk about this is we have to make sure our veterinary profession is comprised of a variety of people who can best serve the animals and people in their communities. And there’s, again, very broad there. So what does that mean? That means we have to create environments in our communities and in our veterinary practices where anyone that comes in there either to work or to be served feels comfortable. They feel like they belong there, that they are respected, they’re valued, they’re safe both physically and psychologically.

And that’s what’s going to keep a client coming back and that’s what’s going to keep an employee there. If we’re talking about, let’s say, on the admission side, and this could be even rural communities. And it’s a sign of a diverse or varied veterinary profession is we have people from rural backgrounds that are willing to go back to those areas and serve. We have to reach out to those communities and actually inspire them, mentor them, assist them. It doesn’t mean we’re lowering standards, it doesn’t mean we’re doing anything other than leveling the playing field so that all people who want to pursue a career as a veterinarian, as a veterinary technician, a veterinary assistant, they have the opportunity to work and demonstrate that they can do that.

The veterinary field is facing well-documented shortages, especially in rural areas. What role do you see academic institutions playing in addressing this challenge, and how is the Ohio State University contributing?

Yeah, this is a really important topic at this time. It’s not a new problem, but it’s a worsening problem where rural communities are underserved by veterinarians. In Ohio alone, there are 28 counties out of 88, so almost a third, who are considered underserved by the USDA. 10 of those counties are seriously underserved, like may not have a veterinarian, a veterinary, not a veterinary practice. If you don’t have veterinarians in the community, you’re not going to be inspiring young people because they don’t have a role model. You’re also not able to serve those animals and people, and we’re actually putting whole other populations at risk. Veterinarians in a way are surveillance people. If you have a sick cow, a sick chicken, a sick whatever, and depending on what it is, it could be the first of an outbreak of some infectious disease, whether it’s a backyard flock of chickens with avid influenza or it’s… God forbid, foot and mouth disease or African swine fever if they made their way into our country.

Those are really risky, not just for those communities, but that’s how then they get spread from those small, little to big operations where there might be a veterinarian. So what is the veterinary profession doing and what are others doing? So the USDA has announced and is expanding some of the funding for rural veterinary workforce. There were a couple listening sessions a couple of weeks ago. States are doing similar things with initiatives to provide funding either upfront for scholarships or on the backend for loan repayment, but it needs to be broader than that. And we are working with the Farm Journal Foundation as have some other colleges before us, and they are doing an assessment of Ohio and for us to help us have a roadmap for what we can do. We also are learning from one another. At the Dean’s Winter Leadership Conference, I’m the program chair and there will be a session on the rural veterinary workforce where we can be sharing ideas with one another about what’s working or not working, knowing that no one approach to a community’s going to work in every community.

We have to engage those communities themselves and help them find solutions that are workable and sustainable. We have an initiative here in Ohio that was recently funded by the state, and we call it Protect Ohio, which stands for Protect One Health in Ohio.

And it’s really an approach to graduate more veterinarians, graduate veterinarians from Ohio, and ones from rural communities or communities where there’s a need for large animal, food animal, equine, and some of the others where there is a shortage. The other two shortage areas other than… Well, there’s more than two, but the other two that I consider really important, one are those that are wanting to go into academia as faculty. We have about 475 currently open vacant funded faculty positions across the US Colleges of Veterinary Medicine. The other big area are specialists that would work in private specialty practice or work in academia. And so we have several issues, concerns that we need to be dealing with simultaneously.

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Well, after decades in veterinary medicine as a clinician, researcher, leader, and advocate, what keeps you most inspired in your work, and what advice would you give to aspiring veterinarians wanting to enter the profession today?

The more I see the world changing, the more valuable I see a veterinary degree. Veterinarians are so important in so many aspects of our life, our work, our globe, the world. And look beyond what I looked at when I was an aspiring veterinary student before I ever got to veterinary school. I wanted to be an Appalachian version of James Herriot. And that’s absolutely fine, we need those people. But there’s a lot more that people can do, and you can also change your interests throughout your career. Most veterinarians probably have three different careers, and divide their 40 years into increments. For me, I was a clinician, researcher, teacher, et cetera, for actually 15 years. And now, I’ve been in administration for 19 years. I don’t know what my next segment will be, but just know that it’s a wide open field, it’s a blank canvas. You can paint your own landscape and roadmap, and you can change your mind along the way.

I never set out to be a dean. Everybody asks, “Did you always know you wanted to be a dean?” I didn’t even know what a dean was. No, it’s who you become exposed to, who inspires you, who takes you under their wing. And I would just say to any aspiring veterinary student, you cannot go wrong in going into veterinary medicine. You need to go in eyes wide open. It’s a long road of education and training. It’s expensive, but there are ways to decrease the expenses through scholarships and other things, which is what many of our colleges of veterinary medicine, including us are doing. And some of these communities that are in need of veterinarians will be doing the same thing to support veterinary students while they’re in school, and hopefully when they come out to either provide loan repayment, provide them a building to practice out of, provide low interest mortgage loans from the community bank, and many other ways that you can make it work. So do not let anybody talk you out of at an early age of your dream to become a veterinarian. Call me first.

There has never been a better time to be a veterinarian. And like you said, there are so many different opportunities and career paths for veterinarians. Rustin, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession?

I mean, we get surprises many times because we’re not looking far enough out over the horizon. And we have people that are looking at one appointment out, one day out, one week out, one month out, one year out. And that’s okay because we need people doing that. But we also need people that are looking out 10 years out, 20 years out, and looking at what the emerging trends are, but also what are the risks and the potential needs. So to me, both the surprising thing and the exciting thing is there’s always something new. It’s an outbreak of a disease. And we could say, well, how could we have known that and prevented that rather than waiting until it happened? That’s, we need to be looking out further. We need to be doing surveillance. We need to have time to actually be thinking, and not just going through the motions.

And that’s what I’m concerned about in academia today, that in veterinary academia, so many of our faculty are so overworked and burdened because of the shortage of faculty that they aren’t having the time to think about what’s next and what they could be doing and how they could be preventing some of these things.

I remember back in 2012 when Lonnie King was our dean and he was certainly a One Health advocate. We increased our class size by 25, and everybody, you would’ve thought we were going to just wreak havoc on the veterinary profession by flooding it. And we took a lot of hits for it, not physical, but… We went around the state and had five different listening sessions, Q&As, which was very helpful. And I remember a statement that Lonnie made, and he doesn’t take credit for it, it’s a Washington DC sort of saying. And Lonnie would say, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” Meaning where you stand on an issue depends on your seat and therefore your view of the world, or the profession in this case. Lonnie predicted there would be a need for more veterinarians when everybody else was saying, “We got too many.”

What year was that?

2012.

2012.

Sorry, that’s when we started. Lonnie was the dean in 2009. We had just gone through that recession. Well, at that point, there probably wasn’t a need, but if you’re looking out over the horizon and now look at us today where we have a significant shortage, it may not be a shortage that’s distributed evenly across all aspects of the profession, but there is a substantial shortage of veterinarians across the areas I mentioned and others. Some of the other surprises is just think of the technology that has advanced. I mean, I have a dog that has diabetes and he was in a clinical trial. They were comparing two continuous glucose monitors where they were monitored it continuously. That was for a clinical trial to advance things. But for me, it helped us regulate his insulin doses. And there’s all sorts of new technology coming out that will enhance the health of pets and other animals, and also strengthen the human-animal bond.

What does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

A crystal ball… I don’t have a mirror ball, but the crystal ball, I would say, is veterinarians are going to continue to be not only integral, but vital for humanity. I mean, I think in that One Health triad, veterinarians are at the center of it. And I don’t mean to say that in a way that we’re better than anybody, but the way we are trained and what we are trained about make us population scientists, food safety people, zoonotic disease understanding. And because of that, working closely with other health professions, social work, you name it, ag, farmers, et cetera, our future is going to continue to be bright. We have gone through transformations of our profession. Used to be, we primarily were around to care for horses because horses were important for transportation and farming and all those things. And when that changed, we sort of had to reinvent ourselves.

And then we were around food animal, livestock. Then we’ve been more in the companion… Not more of, but more and more companion animal care. Now, that’s gone even farther with the human animal bond and precision medicine and all these things. So we, I think, are in a really interesting time now where I think global One Health is going to take on a whole nother level of importance.

You played a leading role in rescuing and re-homing nearly 500 horses after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. What lessons did you learn from those experiences, and how has it influenced your approach to veterinary outreach and disaster preparedness?

Yeah. So I was in Louisiana from 1994 to 2006. I happened to be home visiting my family, not by chance. It wasn’t to get away from Hurricane Katrina. When Hurricane Katrina landed or made landfall on August 29th of 2005, but I flew home the next day because that’s when my flight was scheduled. I mean, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, New Orleans was devastated as what were other surrounding areas. The first thing I did is I go online and I give money. What else can I do? But within a few days, it was clear we had to do more than that. So we set up, it was called the Horse Hurricane Helpline, and we had it… It was 24/7 for weeks. And people would call in, they had to evacuate. They left their horse wherever it was. They were worried. They would tell us what breed and what color. And if it had a tattoo or whatever.

And so, once within a few days when we were either allowed to go in or we just went into those areas, we then set up this rescue operation. One day I was in my office and I got a call saying, “We need you to come down because we need a veterinarian to go in with these people to bring out, I don’t know, two or three horses from wherever.” And I drive down there to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center and there’s five equine vets standing there. And I’m like, “So why do you need me?” And so I’m like, “I don’t think you need me.” So when they left, I said to the people there, I said, “If we don’t get something organized here, we’re going to not be successful.” That was not me volunteering to lead it, but that’s what it led to, that I then was the one that was organizing the logistics of these rescues.

I only went out once to rescue horses, and that was once because after Rita, they went over to rescue some horses and they couldn’t load any of them onto the trailer. So, most of my work was behind the scenes organizing teams of people to go into these areas to bring horses out. That day I did go over to the Lafayette area, we did bring every horse out of there. They might not have known they were on a horse trailer because they were so sedated, but they got on the horse trailer. But I would say, it taught me a lot about teamwork. It taught me also about if someone wasn’t willing to do a job that we needed done, we didn’t need them as part of the team.

And I had to turn a few people away that I would meet them at usually 5:30 in the morning down at the Lamar Dixon to send the teams out with instructions. And one day we didn’t have any horses to rescue, but we had other animals to rescue. We had the need to take food and supplies in for animals or people, generators, et cetera. And one person says, “I’m not here for that, I’m here to rescue horses.” I said, “Well, you can kindly leave them because we need people who are willing to do the work that’s needed.” So it’s about teamwork and how you pull people together under really difficult circumstances when there was very little planning ahead of time.

Teamwork is so important. Rustin, what’s been the biggest adversity that you’ve encountered through your career?

Wow. I feel blessed from a personal perspective. I’ve worked really, really hard from the time I grew up in West Virginia as a first generation college student. So I’ve worked hard, but I also realized that had I not been either who I am or who I was perceived to be, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that some other people, meaning my race, my skin color, my gender, et cetera. So I feel really blessed. Some of the adversity, I would say, is related to people in the profession that we’ve lost. When I was at Louisiana State University, one of my mentees who was a pre-vet student, and after several tries getting in, she was involved with our equine research, she got in and she had been very stable with her epilepsy. I didn’t even know she had epilepsy, but then as she got in vet school, came back and… Anyway, make a long story short, she died by suicide.

Sorry.

When I was back here a couple of three years, I was here, I came back in 2006. In 2010, one of my dear colleagues and friends in the profession died by suicide. In the first three weeks of my deanship, one of our own students died by suicide. Those are the adversities that have impacted me the most in addition to loss of other people who wasn’t related to suicide, but it was still an adversity. And I think those things that I just mentioned have really helped shape why I am so passionate about health and wellbeing of our people here in the college with all the resources we provide, but also across the whole profession. And we have to do more.

What advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

I don’t believe I’ve ever made a bad decision about my career. Now, have I made bad decisions about situations, a case, whatever? Of course, I’m not perfect. And I don’t mean to say I’m perfect at all because I’m far from it, but I’m proud of the decisions I made to take a right turn or a left turn or to go forward through the intersection as I’ve pursued my career. I might tell myself to maybe not take on as much as I have, either at my place of employment. At one point back in the early days here, I was the department chair, executive director of the hospital, and the associate dean for clinical programs. Although they were all related, they were sort of jobs at one… Three jobs combined. So, I might tell myself to be a better role model for work-life balance. I feel like I have work-life balance, but my work-life balance is not the same as others.

And I don’t have expectations of people having the type of balance or work-life stuff that I have, but I probably could have, should have done a better job of letting them know that their work-life balance is different than mine and that’s fine. So those would be some of the things maybe that I would think given advice to myself.

What about to others, what message or principle do you wish you could teach everyone listening to our podcast?

Follow your dreams and ambition. Be kind. It does not cost anything to be kind. You can be kind by simply saying, “Hello. I hope your day’s going well.” You could give someone a cup of coffee. There’s so many ways to be kind. It costs nothing. And the opposite of that is when one is not kind, that has a huge negative impact on that person’s moment, the rest of the day, perhaps the week, perhaps forever. And I’m talking about everybody in the veterinary profession and people that we serve. Be kind, work as a team, take some risks if you are looking for a new adventure in your profession. It may seem a little scary, but it also might be one of the most rewarding things that you do if you give yourself permission to say, “I’m going to try that. And you know, it may not work. And if it doesn’t, that’s fine. I’ll go back and do X, Y, or Z.” Those would be some of the advice I’d give.

We need more kindness in the world. Well, some of our guests say they’ve had a key book that helped them along the way. Do you have a key book in your life that’s impacted you the most?

One of the leadership books that I think… Not just the book, but some of the principles of it is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And I won’t go into that in particular, but that from a leadership perspective is really helpful. And I think it depends on the type of leader, one is… And there’s no one and only best type of leader. There’s multiple leadership styles that are effective, and sometimes you have to sort of morph. You have to blend in sometimes, and sometimes you lead from the front, sometimes you lead from the back, sometimes you lead but aside, sometimes you follow. But I’d say from a leadership perspective, that would be it. There’s a lot of other books I’ve read, but it’s not necessarily related to the job. I hope other people might say one day, “You know, a really moving book for me was the one Rustin Moore wrote.”

Well, some people who have written book reviews, I don’t know if they’re just being nicer or whatever, but it would suggest that it did have a positive impact on them.

And when does your next book come out?

My next book will come out in January of this year of ’26. It’s currently in layout at the publisher. So the first book is Unleashing the Bond: Harnessing the Power of Human Animal Interactions. And the second book is called Unlocking the Bond: The Power and Paradox of Human Animal interactions. And I’m really happy and Pleased with the first book, but I think I’m hopeful that book two will be even more powerful.

And you didn’t even set out to write a book, did you?

No, I didn’t. And I didn’t set out to write a book. I turned this idea down three times before I eventually said yes. If I’d have known how much work it would be before I set out to do it, I would’ve probably said no, for sure. And now I’m glad I didn’t, because there’s also a third book in the banking.

Oh, wow. Well, Rustin, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you want to share with our listeners of The People of Animal Health Podcasts before you drop the mic today?

And I know you have a broad audience, so for those, whether you’re pet owners, whether you’re veterinarians, whether you’re involved in any other connection to animals, realize that the bond between a person and an animal, whether it’s a livestock, whether it’s a dog, whether it’s a turtle, those have real positive benefits on your health and wellbeing physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, et cetera. So take a little extra time out of your day to either stare into the eyes of your dog, pet your cat or your dog, speak to them in baby talk. Go over to your neighbors and say hi to their dog if you don’t have one, because your day will be enhanced and you will feel better and probably be better by somehow interacting with an animal.

Rustin, where can members of our audience find your book?

Well, thank you for that, Stacy. Unleashing the Bond: Harnessing the Power of Human-Animal Interactions can be accessed as either a paperback, hardcover, ebook, and now audiobook on Amazon. And also, you can get certain versions of it on Barnes & Noble and other places, but certainly Amazon. UNLOCKING THE BOND: The Power and Paradox of Human-Animal Interactions when it comes out in January will be available at that same location. But also you could access either of them through my website, which is www.rustinmooredvm.com. And it has links to both books that take you… You don’t purchase it for me, you would purchase it from Amazon.

Well, Rustin, thanks for being my guest today on The People of Animal Health Podcast. It was a pleasure to have you here with me today.

Well, thank you so much, Stacy, for having me and actually for all you do in the profession and for having this podcast.