When she moved to Melbourne for her veterinary degree from Upstate New York via Brisbane, Dr Brittany found Lort Smith through our foster care program. She was in her second year of her degree and desperately missed fostering animals, having loved doing this in her previous home cities.

Shortly after, Dr Brittany started volunteering in our cattery and kennels, walking dogs and cleaning enclosures.

“I remember one day sitting in the kennels and hearing our Adoption Centre General Manager talking about a job advert. I immediately thought ‘I need to go and introduce myself to this woman!’ So I quickly jumped on that opportunity,” laughs Dr Brittany.

Dr Brittany went on to work as an Animal Welfare Officer in our Adoption Centre for four years whilst she studied. She also worked in customer service and did some reception shifts. “I originally trained in nursing so I did a lot of my placement in nursing and got trained through that pathway.”

Lort Smith’s values and mission are central to Dr Brittany’s belief in the organisation. “Affordability of care is something that has always been really important to me. I love that Lort Smith supports people from all circumstances and helps many who struggle to afford vet services. I hate that for some people, euthanasia seems the only option because of cost. At Lort Smith, our mission is to help provide the care they need – I just think that’s such an amazing quality in an organisation.”

Dr Brittany was always going to return to Lort Smith once she got her degree. “We see a huge range of cases and have full exposure to critical care, medical, surgical, diagnostics and exotics. And whatever your area of interest is, the senior vets will give you their full support. Our hospital has a really high standard of practice. We’ve got CT scans, same day x-rays – it has everything you can possibly need. And we’re all really excited about the facilities we’ll be working in when the new hospital opens in 2023.”

She also values the support that the organisation offers its teams. “We have clinicians who have been here for ten, 20, 30 years. You don’t find that very often in small vet clinics, it shows it’s a good place to work.”

Dr Brittany admits that our shelter was also a big drawcard in her wanting to work with Lort Smith. Her passion is shelter medicine which has a dedicated home at our state-of-the-art Adoption Centre in Campbellfield, our new site in Melbourne’s Northern suburbs.

“I also love inpatient care because I enjoy spending time with animals who have complex cases. With inpatient care you have time to work up cases and piece the puzzle together to determine the medical diagnosis. I get a lot of joy out of that!”

When asked about what the future of veterinary medicine looks like at Lort Smith, Dr Brittany says there will be lots of new opportunities, particularly with the opening of the new hospital. “The future looks really good, there will be more focus put into supported learning. For example, Dr Tom and Dr Jonathon are amazing teachers and great at walking you through things. Because of the new facilities we will be able to do even more for more animals. There will be a lot of growth and change in the future – it’s exciting!”

“Louisa Lort Smith left a lovely legacy. It’s pretty cool to have started something like this and have it grow into what it is today. Who knows what she would have expected when she founded it way back in 1936?! It was a very brave thing to do and it has changed veterinary care in this country.”

 

You can read more about Louisa Lort Smith and the history of our organisation here.