Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!
Those are just a few of the more unusual animals Dr. Lauren Minner has treated during her career in veterinary medicine. She’s also cared for other exotic animals, including a kinkajou, a tropical rain forest mammal that looks like a monkey-squirrel mix, and a Savannah monitor, which is a medium-sized species of monitor lizard native to Africa.
“I tell people I will treat anything with fur or scales,” she laughs. “But I don’t do birds.”
Dr. Minner is an emergency veterinarian at VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital, a specialty referral and emergency hospital in Denver. She loves what she does.
“It lets me treat a number of diseases without being pigeonholed into one specialty,” Minner said. “And you never really know what’s going to come in, so it keeps you on your toes.”
Growing up, Minner always loved animals, but hadn’t considered becoming a vet. She attended Trails West Elementary, Falcon Creek Middle School, and Grandview High School, where she played soccer, was a manager for the football team, and worked in the before & after care program at Antelope Ridge Elementary. When she graduated in 2009, she enrolled at the University of Colorado – Denver to study nursing but found it didn’t fully intrigue her.
“People can advocate for themselves, explain where it hurts and what’s wrong,” Minner explained. “An animal can’t do that, so it’s almost more of a challenge or a puzzle to figure out what’s wrong with them. You have to be a little bit more in tune with them, and that became more interesting to me.”
So, Minner transferred to the Bel-Rea Institute of Animal Technology where she earned an associate degree in applied technology of animal science. She then moved to Texas and worked as a vet tech in the teaching hospital at Texas A&M University for six years. There, she discovered she wanted a greater challenge.
“I just wanted more,” she recalls. “I wanted to be the one to make the decisions and make the tough calls and be more in charge of the diagnostic and treatment journey of my patients.”
So, while still working full-time, she went back to school and completed the requirements that would allow her to apply to veterinary school, which is a four-year graduate program like medical school, dental school, or law school. She stayed at Texas A&M and earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine or DVM in 2022.
“It’s a long journey, takes a lot of dedication and grit,” Minner said. She felt prepared for the rigor, however, because of the education she received in the Cherry Creek School District.
“They were all really good schools and the faculty and teachers, they really did care about us,” she said. “They wanted us to do well, and they cared about us as people, not just as students.”
Minner is still in touch with several of her CCSD teachers and considers them family. Her own family is still in Colorado, so after earning her DVM, she moved back to the Denver area where she lives with a German Shepherd named Elliott, an Aussie named Dodge that she rescued during vet school, a black, long-haired cat named Birdie, and a Persian kitten named Edgar.
A year-long internship at VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital convinced her she’d found her professional home, where she could continue to pursue her professional calling in emergency veterinary medicine.
“It’s one of those professions that gives back day after day, year after year,” she said.
Posted 5/8/2024.
