HuffPost: Very Few Veterinarians Are Black In The U.S. This Is What It's Like To Be One
Jan 23, 2024
It’s hard to believe you can be what you cannot see. And one of the least diverse professions in America is veterinary medicine.
It’s a long-standing issue. In 2013, veterinary medicine was the whitest job in America, according to The Atlantic, and last year’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that only 2.2% of veterinarians are Black, with Asian and Latinx vets severely underrepresented as well. The overwhelming majority of vets are white women. A lack of visible representation, high vet school tuition costs, six-figure student debt and enduring biases are some of the reasons for this.
To put stories behind those numbers, HuffPost interviewed three Black veterinarians to hear why there are still so few Black people in the profession today, what continues to excite them about their jobs and their advice to those who want to follow in their path.
Dr. Niccole Bruno is the founder and CEO of Blendvet, a veterinarian hospital certification program. Before pivoting to working full time at Blendvet in 2022, she was chief of staff of Companion Animal Hospital in Spring, Texas.
What are you currently doing?
My goal is to certify veterinary hospitals in DEI — or diversity, equity, inclusion — by having them go through a program where all of their staff is trained in certain categories related to DEI. If they go through the modules and they do community service, and they change something internally within their hospitals, then they become certified.
I see it as an opportunity to really change our culture of veterinary medicine. I think that the next generation of veterinarians really wants that, and I’m trying to be ahead of that so they have a better experience than I had early on in my career. I turned 40 in 2020, and I started to think about, “What legacy am I leaving? Am I leaving the profession better than I started?” To me, the answer was no. I have two Black children. I think about my children and if they decide they want to be a vet because they’ll see it. They have an auntie and they have a mom that’s a veterinarian, so they will never doubt that they can be veterinarians. But if they are, what kind of pipeline are they entering? I need to do what I can to make it better.
In your company bio, you talk about dealing with “racism, misogyny and stereotypical behaviors” in your career. Could you share more about that?
I dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome, which I later learned was stereotype threat, because I felt like I had to prove that I was worthy of being a veterinarian, of being in those rooms.
A lot of times, people don’t assume that I’m the veterinarian. I’ve had clients request for the doctor to come in like they hadn’t seen the doctor. And my staff is like: “What are you talking about? The doctor was just in there.” And I go back in there, and they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know you were the doctor.”
I did have a client that refused to have me do his pet’s surgery. It was very early on in my career, but it was a surgery that I felt comfortable doing. The owner did not know what was going on with the pet, and I ... found the problem, went in there and said, “I can do the surgery. Here’s how much it will cost,” and he was just like, “I want somebody else to do the surgery.”
Was it my age? Was it my gender? Was it my race? ... I do look young. And in 2009 [when it happened], I looked much younger. People have biases towards age, towards a newer grad or towards a Black woman or a Latinx woman, or the fact that I was a woman at all. Those are the parts you can’t really separate, and I never got clarity because, even though my boss ended up doing the surgery, he didn’t provide clarity. He just told me [the client] was being chauvinistic, but as I reminded my boss in that moment, “You can’t just say that, that it’s just a gender thing.” Because a lot of us are women. It could have been so much more than that. It’s hard.
I’ve shared this story with veterinary students and people that are in practice now. And we talk about all of the steps, where was it missed? What could I have done? What could the hospital have had in place as far as rules to not allow this? What should the leader have done in that moment? It’s a case that is teachable. I had a student last week tell me that he watched a BIPOC veterinarian be declined by a white woman to have her pet seen by him, and it was horrible for [my student] to watch.
Why should Black professionals and those from other underrepresented groups pursue veterinary medicine despite the existing barriers?
In general, I think what we do is an amazing job. We have the ability to make something feel better that cannot communicate. It’s a science; it’s playing detective. It’s asking the owners the right questions but also fact-checking by seeing if it matches with the patient. Every case is a little piece of an investigation. When you are able to make a pet feel better, when you have a client that has struggled with trying to understand how to treat their pet and you can figure it out and give them tools to make it better, it’s just so rewarding.
Do you think your colleagues share your urgency for improving diversity in veterinary medicine?
All of my colleagues of color, we recognize what the diversity problem is and we all do what we can to be the change. I have friends that have started programs through their hospital to allow students to come and shadow. They go do career days within their communities. They mentor.
But in general, when I walk into hospitals, I don’t think that my white colleagues are necessarily thinking about diversity as much as we are. Merck did a veterinary well-being study in 2021, and it actually pointed out that BIPOC veterinary professionals, their No. 1 concern is diversity in veterinary medicine. That was at 46%. Whereas white colleagues, their No. 1 concern was the veterinary shortage.
Those are the differences. I think they’re both relatable: We have a veterinary shortage, so we should be thinking about who else might want to join our profession.
The clientele is diverse, and they want to see themselves in us, and I want to do what I can to not only improve the representation but also to really train my colleagues about how to appreciate cultural differences and how to connect with people. At the end of the day, how we treat animals is by having the relationships with the people. And if they say yes, then we can treat their pets, we can offer services, and they’ll pay for them because they understand and they trust us. But if we don’t have a connection with clients, they don’t come back, they don’t do what we ask them to do and the pet suffers in the end.
What would be your advice for Black professionals who want to become a vet?
Not to give up. Know that there are opportunities out there to find mentors. I’m part of an advisory group called Pawsibilities. We do exist. We may not be a lot, but there are many of us that are willing to mentor students through this platform and some of our colleges and veterinary schools.
