Dr. Beth Innis, DVM, CVA, CCRT, CVCHM, CVSMT
My love of reading and my love of animals and their bodies are impossible to separate. I can feel the swelling of my heart as my mom read to me, over and over, upon request, the story of Louie Pasteur and the story of the immune system as my small world expanded as a youngster. My plan to become a veterinarian took about one millisecond to solidify after starting to read James Herriot’s funny, quirky stories of being a mixed animal doctor in Yorkshire England. Even now, I’ve just finished a book by Samantha Irby who spent hours and hours of being a receptionist in a suburban animal hospital. When my oldest daughter was five or six and reading away, and my youngest daughter, at three or four, looked on with intense jealousy, we all promised her that her world would expand infinitely once she linked the meaning to those letters and words! And at this point, I’m pretty sure our house is about to collapse under the weight of all our books. The thing I love about reading is similar to the thing I love about medicine. There is always one more perspective to gain and one more story to incorporate into your world. And as our world and medicine change so rapidly, there is never a moment where there isn’t a potential to expand our thinking and our perspective.