Ep 40: Dr Sara Pizano & Her Mission to Transform Shelter Medicine

On today’s show, I’m joined by Dr Sara Pizano. Sara is a Cornell Graduate and leading light in shelter medicine who has brought about enormous positive change to shelters across America. After university, she completed an internship at the Animal Medical Center in New York in 1995 and was subsequently hired by North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, New York where her shelter medicine adventure began. In 1998 Sarah was recruited as director of the Humane Society of Broward County in Fort Lauderdale and in 2005 she was appointed the Director of Miami-Dade Animal Services in Miami, Florida. During her tenure, she attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, nearly tripled the adoption rate and pretty much rewrote the Animal Services County Code! In 2013 she joined 'Target Zero' as program director and was instrumental in creating and developing a new model to transform high euthanasia public shelters. In the course of her work, she visited and mentored multiple shelters around the country resulting in a drop of nearly 50,000 animal euthanasias in just 18 of those shelters alone. In an effort to offer a wider scope of services to help shelters of all types and sizes she created Team Shelter USA in 2017, where her goal is for all animal welfare organizations to have access to her life saving practices. Dr. Pizano is the author of The Best Practice Playbook for Animal Shelters and leads the assessment and mentorship program at Maddie’s Shelter Medicine, University of Florida. She has received multiple awards and is a board member of the Companion Animal Advisory Council and the Humane Society of the United States. Now, just before we jump into the episode, a quick word from today’s show sponsor which today is the VetX:Thrive. If you are working in practice and clients or colleagues are making you miserable then I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you are probably the source of your problems. The good news is that you are also 100% in control of changing things and having a great career. You are missing some skills and they are NOT clinical. Enter VetX:THRIVE. VetX is a RACE accredited non-clinical skills training course where members receive training, toolkits and mentoring support to support development of these skills. Paul, one of the community members says joining was the best decision of his life and went from being miserable to being energised and happy in his work. Membership is available for a small monthly fee where you can join hundreds of other vets who have changed their careers for the better. To learn more and find out if the class is a good fit for you visit www.drdavenicol.com/vetxthrive today. Now back to the show, In a sector of veterinary medicine which can seem bleak, Dr Pizano’s work offers not just a glimmer of hope, but a well-lit path to a future where animals that can find homes, do find homes. I was engrossed and I learned so much about the incredible and often unsung work Sara and all the heroes in shelter medicine undertake each day. I hope you also enjoy this eye-opening conversation with the inspirational Dr Sara Pizano.