Click on a name to learn more about these women in science and technology fields.
Marilyn Frank
Veterinarian
What operations do you perform most frequently?
The most common type of surgery that we perform are castrations and ovarian hysterctomies. There are surgeries that we do with some frequencies. Older animals tend to get tumors, primarily abdominal tumors. So we do a lot of abdominal surgery. Skin cancer is common in both cats and dogs so we remove a lot of skin growths. We do dentistry on dogs as well as cats. We don't do too much orthopedic surgery anymore. People have gotten much better about keeping their animals off the roads so we don't see too many broken bones but mostly spays and neuters.
We were wondering what were some of the key components were and if you could define your job for the young women interested in becoming veterinarians or other careers in the math and science fields.
Sure. I'd love to. I'm a small animal veterinarian and I work in a clinic with two other veterinarians. We see primarily dogs and cats. The clinic is in somewhat of a rural area so many of our clients also are rabbits. We see occasional exotic animals like rats getting to be a popular pet. Ferrets every now and then. But it's mostly dogs and cats.
Do you have any recommendations for young women aspiring to become veterinarians?
Well I think it would be a very good idea, if you're interested in pursuing a career in veterinary medicine, to certainly spend a lot of time taking math and science courses because most of the veterinary schools require a lot of math and science as prerequisites for admission and in the first year or two, once you're in veterinary school, you take a lot of math and science so it's important to get a good background in those courses.
Are there any specific animals you really enjoy working with the most?
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My favorite are puppies and kittens I have to say. It's always so nice after examing animals that are sick and not feeling well to have the healthy little bouncy kitten or puppy to come in. The other thing that's really fun about having puppies and kittens come in is watching them grow because if you're in a practice for seven or eight years and you start seeing an animal when they're very young as a puppy and you're seeing them until they get to be much older it's fun to watch that process.
Could you tell us a little about your background and your family, just why you decided to become a veterinarian?
I'm married and I have two children. I have a son who's just started college and I have a daughter who's in the seventh grade. And I decided to be a veterinarian initially because I had an interest in science and math. When I went to college the college that I attended had a terrific biology department. I majored in biology and I met a veterinarian that actually taught animal behavior at my college and I worked in a lab. He had a lab on campus. He studied He studied the behavior of wild canines as well as domestic canines. He actually encouraged me to get a degree in veterinarian medicine. It seemed like a very practical choice and I'm really happy that I made that decision.
Do you have advice for girls hoping to work in the math, science or technology field?
Well, I think certainly if you concentrate in any of those areas your choice of careers is going to be tremendous. Anybody thinking in particular about a career in veterinary medicine I think it's a wonderful career. I think it's a great career for men as well as women. One of the things that I like so much about veterinarian medicine is that it gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of... Once you have that degree the kind of work that you can actually do. You can work in a clinic. You can work in a university. You can work in a large hospital. In the city of New York City was a animal medical center that is seven stories high and they have every specialty that you can think of in one building. You can specialize. You can become a veterinary radiologist, an opthalmologist, You can be an equine surgeon. You can be a human animal vet. You can work for government. You can work for industry. It gives you so many choices. You can do so much with it. So I think it's a terrific career. It's a lot of fun too. It never gets boring.
Did being a female ever affect your career choices?
Well the wonderful thing about veterinarian medicine is that we'll say prior to early 1970's there were very very few women in veterinary medicine. You could have a class of veterinary students of maybe seventy or eighty and if there were three women it was a lot. So it used to be primarily a field that attracted men. They didn't accept women to veterinary school. Starting in maybe the middle to the late seventies that changed over night and women began to be admitted to veterinary schools in very large numbers and I think today most veterinary schools have at least fifty percent if not more of their classes as women so that there's a lot of women veterinarians out there and I think its a wonderful career for a women as is any medical career because I think there's a lot of nurturing involved and I think most women are very good at nurturing.
So, do you appreciate the math and science courses you took when you were in school?
Absolutely! Absolutely! I remember in particular the physiology course I had when I was in high school and we were able to dissect a fetal pig which I just found to be so fascinating and I think that was the point where I decided that I really wanted to pursue a career in science. I didn't know then that I wanted to be a veterinarian but I knew that I really loved science and the teacher that I had was just passionate about what he did and he conveyed that readily to us and got us all excited about the course.
How does new technology affect your career?
Well I think computers have certainly had an inpact on veterinarian medicine both in terms of gaining access to information from journals and questions you might have about a particular case and you need more input. We use a lot of machinery in the lab in terms of x-ray machines, anesthetic machines, laboratory machines, and those are always being updated, made more efficient and over time you wanted to use these machines and they certtainly make practise easier.
How does math relate to your career?
Well we use math a lot in figuring out doses of medications to give animals because animals are dosed according to weight. And also some types of medications are dosed according to surface area of an animal, body surface area, and its very important, especially when you're dealing with anesthetic medications to make sure that the dosing is accurate because if you make mistakes you can overdose and you don't want to do that.
Have you ever felt that men dominate math and science careers?
I think certainly there are some math and science careers that men dominate but veterinarian medicine doesn't fall into that category.
