Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Eric Atkinson: Each year, the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University
recognizes one of its countless, successful graduates as the Alumni Fellow for the college
and the 2012 awardee is with us now. We’d like you to know her better. She got her doctorate
in Veterinary Medicine in 1983 from Kansas State and now is in full practice in Littleton,
Colorado. Her name is Dr. Sara Mark. Sara, congratulations, first of all, on this recognition.
>> Dr. Sara Mark: Thanks.
>> Atkinson: Your career path, first of all, you are a native Kansan?
>> Dr. Mark: Oh, yes. From Hutchinson, originally.
>> Atkinson: So you came to Kansas State. Your bachelor’s was in what?
>> Dr. Mark: It was a dual major in Life Science and Physical Science.
>> Atkinson: And then, right into vet school?
>> Dr. Mark: Actually, I worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company as a long distance
operator for a while. I spent one illustrious semester working in the automotive department
at the local K-Mart and then I was a state employee in the pathology department here
for two years.
>> Atkinson: And then?
>> Dr. Mark: And then vet school.
>> Atkinson: From where then? Did you go directly to a practice in Colorado? What’s the story
there?
>> Dr. Mark: Yes. Went to Denver and started working in a really large practice that had
a huge boarding kennel along with it. So we boarded 180 dogs and 60 cats and there were
three full-time veterinarians and no matter what the problem was, you had exactly 15 minutes
to deal with it. So, it really go my feet wet in a hurry.
>> Atkinson: And you stayed with that clinic for a long while?
>> Dr. Mark: For two and a half years and then spent another two and half years working
at a different hospital and then ended up buying the one I have now.
>> Atkinson: Now, where you really, and pardon the pun here, made you’re mark, in addition
to your practice, is your community service and more specifically, the pet therapy that
you’ve promoted, exercised, introduced folks to over the years. Spend a moment on that
if you would.
>> Dr. Mark: A long time ago, back in about 1985, I was asked to start screening dogs
for a then, very new program at the children’s hospital in Denver. At that stage in the game,
we really didn’t have any kind of written protocol, or anything else that went along
with that. It was just a word of mouth, wow, do you have a nice dog you would like to bring
in to see the kids and the veterinarians would sort of look the dog over and say, yeah, you
look like you would be good and off they go. We’d do a couple of cultures on them and
they would be in the hospital. When we won an award from the Delta Society two years
after that, I suddenly said, I think we need a written protocol if you are going to go
to convention and present something. And that was really when we started to have a much
more formalized process and making enforceable, sorts of policies and procedures that could
be followed to protect the hospital from liability and also give all of our volunteers the guidance
that they needed.
>> Atkinson: Really the idea has expanded beyond therapy from children, has it not?
For elderly, for just about anybody that can benefit from pet therapy.
>> Dr. Mark: Definitely. You know, even within our own program we have expanded from just
initially, what was just a visitation sort of program, where we just went in to make
the kids and the staff and the families happy and went home. And we’re doing much more
directed therapy now within the hospital. I’ve also been lucky enough in Metro-Denver
to consult with a lot of other institutions to get their programs up and running and I
think its important for anybody to know that there’s no one, one way that fits any given
facility. It’s going to vary but whether you’re doing just visitation or whether
you actually doing prescribed, directed therapy, you’re making a huge impact.
>> Atkinson: We’re told you illustrated that in an article that was eventually put
into the book, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul, about Darlene and in the time we have,
can you, more or less, summarize what that story was and its significance.
>> Dr. Mark: As usual, my dog Pokey and I were headed up to the hospital for our regularly
scheduled visit and part of the process was always checking in the volunteer office to
see if there’s any patient in particular on the floor that you’re assigned to that
needs a visit, that the staff really knows we need to see and they gave me a room number
and that was fine. Went upstairs. It happened to be on the oncology floor. Went in, beautiful
sixteen-year-old girl sitting there in the bed. Asked if she wanted to see the dog. Oh
yeah, can she sit with me. Put her up on the bed and, this dog was always friendly with
everybody, but in this case, she snuggled right in underneath her arm and laid her head
on her shoulder and proceeded to just stare at this girl’s face transfixed. And the
girl just started whispering to her and I thought, okay, they’re doing their work
that they need to do and I sat and watched TV for thirty minutes and didn’t think a
thing of it. And out of the blue, she says, I know you have other kids you need to go
see, but thanks, you’ll never know how much this meant. So we left and when I got downstairs,
I said, okay, what’s the deal, how come you told us to go to that room. They said,
you know, she has leukemia and just found out that she had failed her third round of
chemotherapy and there’s nothing else they can do for her and so her death is imminent.
And I got a call a few weeks later from the volunteer director and she said, I just wanted
to let you know that Pokey’s friend Darlene went to heaven today. And, later when I thought
about it, I just thought, you know what, she couldn’t tell her parents or her friends
or her caregivers any of her inner fears or anything else, but she could tell that dog.
And she could actually unload all of those burdens that she had and know that they weren’t
ever going to be betrayed to anyone else. I think a lot of people with pets do that
and when they published the book, they used a really, lovely quote from Paul Tillich and
it just said, the first duty of love is to listen, and that’s what she did for her.
>> Atkinson: And that’s what has made this whole endeavor rewarding for you?
>> Dr. Mark: Oh, yeah. And people see, all of our volunteers tell us about the miracles
they see every single day they are up there and so it’s just wonderful to know that
we continue to do all these good things.
>> Atkinson: Sara, visit a bit in closing here about this recognition as the
alumni fellow. What does this mean to you as somebody out there in the field?
>> Dr. Mark: It’s absolutely amazing for starters. When you look at the people who
have received this honor over the last few years, which I did, of course, as soon as
the dean asked me, and was like, oh man, I’m in so much trouble here because these people
are experts in incredible things and who the heck am I. I just get up and go to work everyday.
And so I think that it’s really nice the college recognizes the fact that there are
lots and lots of graduates that are out there, everyday, going through their paces and hopefully
having as good a time as I do at work everyday. I feel like I get to solve puzzles all the
time. It’s, it’s, it’s, I learn something new every single day and it’s an honor to
be here and an honor to be able to be in this profession.
>> Atkinson: You’re extraordinarily deserving and congratulations to you for this recognition.
>> Dr. Mark: Thank you.
>> Atkinson: She is the 2012 Alumni Fellow for the College of Veterinary Medicine at
Kansas State University, from Littleton, Colorado, Dr. Sara Mark.