Meet the vet who is helping vet students transition to the real world

Inspiration

Nov 17

Veterinary professionals around the world all share one thing in common—they all have a story or two about the mistakes they made transitioning from vet student to veterinarian. No matter how carefully students study, the truth of the matter is that cases aren’t always textbook, and it’s easy to miss steps in treating them along the way.

That’s where Dr. Becky Lossing comes in. Dr. Lossing began her journey as a veterinarian like many do, graduating in 2014 from Tufts. Even there, the beginning of her passions were visible. Noticing the struggle that she and other students were having, she made study guides to help other students keep track of information.

This followed her into residency, where she made checklists to help keep track of the many steps needed for optimum care of a patient. Unfortunately, while these checklists and study guides were incredibly helpful to those around her, they were time consuming.

Her father once gave her advice that better laid out the problem for her. When she was trying to decide whether to give up piano or not, he told her, "Sometimes you need to quit, to get where you want to go."

Without the power to quit, you don’t have time for the things that actually matter to you. This advice is very powerful, if you have the strength to take it.

A new life

As time went on, Dr. Becky realized that her residency wasn’t taking her in the direction she wanted to go. Her passion was to educate veterinary students, not in the path that would follow the residency program.

She made a big choice to quit her residency, and go into the human healthcare field instead. Eventually, Dr. Becky’s vision became Mini Mammoth, the business that would see her brainchild unfold.

Mini Mammoth

Mini Mammoth is a business that makes helping vets get better at what they do their #1 goal. Dr. Lossing’s business provides things like the canine and feline constellation, which guides vets through an exam to ensure they never miss anything. In the future, they’ll have more products such as a personal veterinary formulary, which will help vets keep track of dosages and other important things.

Right now, Dr. Lossing sees the veterinary industry in a dangerous state of flux. Over half of all veterinarians would not recommend the career to others, and as many as 86% are experiencing signs of burnout.

Things need to change in the entire field if those statistics are to get better. Before creating Mini Mammoth, Dr. Lossing struggled with her decision to quit her residency. She worried that she was making the wrong decision, and was letting her fellow students down. It ended up being the right decision.

Today, Dr. Lossing is following her dream and helping put tools in the hands of veterinarians that make their jobs easier, better, and more accurate. That means better care for pets, and also better care for the people looking after them.