12 Oct Meet TVMA member Dr. Jeremy Keen
Jeremy Keen, DVM, is with Precious Paws Animal Hospital just across the state line in Southaven, MS.
How long have you been a TVMA member? I have been a TVMA member since 2012. I moved to TN in July 2012 from North Carolina. My plan was to try to become actively involved in TVMA right off the bat. So, I contacted TVMA and had the opportunity to talk with Deloris and share some ideas that I had for new graduates and early career veterinarians. From there, I was able to get my start with the TVMA by attending the Veterinary Leadership Conference in Chicago.
Do you have a particular practice area of interest? I enjoy small animal exclusive practice. My main interests are soft tissue surgery, endocrinology, and nutrition.
What is one professional goal you have for yourself in the next 5 years? So far in my career, I have had the opportunity to speak at different veterinary conferences (AVMA and Fetch DVM 360 Conference) as well as to some smaller veterinary management groups (Kansas City Veterinary Managers Association). I hope to continue to learn and educate myself more on veterinary practice management so that I may continue to have speaking opportunities that may help future and current veterinarians and leaders. I love having opportunities to share the skills and tools that I have learned in my career that have helped me to be successful so far.
What are your hobbies outside of work? I believe that in order to continue being happy in this profession, or any profession, you must find different outlets away from your everyday work routine. These outlets may be through volunteering on an AVMA committee, volunteering in your community, attending national conferences, or just enjoying hobbies outside of work. My motto is “work where you live, not live where you work.” I believe this is so vital especially for new graduates and early career veterinarians when it comes the time to look for your first veterinary position. By focusing on a location that provides the non-work opportunities that you enjoy, you hopefully will always be able to find something to get your mind off of the everyday work routine. I love water sports (kayaking, canoeing, boating) and camping and hiking. I live within a mile of a river that I can just jump up, throw my kayak in the water and take off for a few hours. I also live in an area that provides many different hiking and camping options. By having these options, I know that I can always turn to some of my favorite hobbies when work or life gets tough. I am also a huge Mississippi State athletics fan and I live within 2 hours of Starkville, MS.
What is one personal goal you’ve set for yourself in the next year? One of my main professional goals over the next year is to continue brainstorming and writing material that I can share through public speaking. I have formulated a fairly good variety of practice management presentations, but by expanding this collection, I can hopefully gain more opportunities in the future to share my success stories and recommendations in practice.
Most recent book you’ve read? I am currently reading So You’re A Vet: Now What? by my good friend Dr. Dave Nicol. He has done a phenomenal job on this book and his passion and professional goal is to help new graduates and early career veterinarians to get started on the right foot and to gain the tools in order to be successful in the first few years and to continue to be successful throughout their careers. I am working my way through his book and I plan to share it with my young associate as well as other early career veterinarians that I encounter.
When you have time to watch TV, what’s your guilty pleasure? I love watching Netflix and I am a huge movie buff. I am currently into Ozark and can’t wait for the next season to start. Jason Bateman is one of my favorite actors so I am always looking for movies in which he acts or produces. I could watch a good murder mystery or thriller show/movie at any time. I also have to admit I enjoy the occasional romantic comedy or Lifetime movie (with the wife of course : )) and I am a huge fan of the movie “The Greatest Showman.”
Do you have an especially memorable/humorous client story you’d like to share? I am always coming across some very humorous and memorable client encounters. One that is especially memorable and humorous occurred when I was practicing, maybe three years out of school, in North Carolina. I had a client bring a puppy in, that had been to our clinic probably 2 or 3 times before, for the last set of puppy vaccinations. This was the first time that I had seen the puppy but it had been examined at least twice by one of the other doctors. In this practice, we used pink charts for females and blue charts for males. This puppy had a pink chart. As I was doing the exam, I ran across a strange appendage (for a female anyway) on this puppy’s abdomen. I looked down and made an earth shattering discovery……this was a MALE puppy !! I looked at the client and said “you realize this is a boy puppy right?” She said “No it’s not….. are you kidding !! I told my husband it was a male and he didn’t believe me !!” I went on to ask “well what did he say when you told him that you thought it was a boy?” She went on to tell me that he disagreed with her and went on Google (or Dr. Google) and typed in “strange lump on puppies belly” and Google diagnosed it as an UMBILICAL HERNIA !!!! I told the owner “nope, no hernia” and I picked up the puppy and said “there’s Mr. Winky right there!!” To say the least, this client was astonished and said “I knew I was right !!”
Another client story that occurred was a bulldog owner that I was discussing spay surgeries and C-sections with and she continued to ask me if we do a lot of “intubating.” So, I continued to tell her “Yes ma’am, we intubate patients just about every day” and she was delighted to hear this. I just assumed she knew how complex a Bulldog anesthesia procedure can be and wanted to make sure we had experience intubating them. So, about a few hours after this client left, I kept thinking it was very strange how many times she wanted to be reassured that we intubate. And then it hit me………She meant to say INSEMINATE (as in AI) !!!! Wow, yeah, our clinic doesn’t routinely do that. So, I had to call this client and ask if that’s what she meant and, indeed it was. At least I figured this out before she either schedule semen to be shipped to us or brought a stud dog in for me to collect on! Thankfully, at my current clinic, we have a doctor that does quite a bit of surgical AI procedures and now I can feel confident in saying “yes ma’am we do” and then inform my colleague that he’s up to bat again.