Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: My Patients and Other Animals
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://suzyfinchamgray.com/
CITY: San Diego
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| HEADING: | Fincham-Gray, Suzanne |
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| 400 | 1_ |a Gray, Suzanne Fincham- |
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PERSONAL
Married; children: daughter.
EDUCATION:Attended Cornell University; University of Pennsylvania, veterinary internship; University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Veterinarian, certified small-animal internal medicine specialist, author.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Suzy Fincham-Gray is a veterinarian and board-certified small-animal internal medicine specialist who writes about animal care. She began treating farm animals on the English-Welsh border and has spent the last twenty years living in the United States. In her practice, she treats dogs and cats with complex medical problems, which she writes about in her 2018 memoir, My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian’s Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert.
In the book, Fincham-Gray explores the love, healing, and loss of being pet owners and describes specific cases she has treated. “In this affably written amalgam of pedagogic and heartwarming material, the author chronicles her early years as a medical professional,” noted a writer in Kirkus Reviews. With a father who was a veterinary lab microbiologist, she traces her start in veterinary medicine in Britain, and then to the University of Pennsylvania for an internship and working in animal hospital emergency rooms in large American cities. As animals bring so much emotional comfort to their owners, she describes diagnosing and treating difficult diseases, and the need for humane end-of-life care for those pets for whom there are no more treatment options.
During her practice on the East and West coasts of the United States, she treated many complex cases. In the book, she names each chapter after such a case, including Missy the cat who was impaled by an arrow, the Doberman Hercules with a gunshot wound, a miniature dachshund with pancreatitis after eating a hot dog, and Sweetie the pit bull who needed a blood transfusion. Despite the often devastating emotional turmoil her work with seriously ill pets can take on her, she told Denise Davidson in an interview online at San Diego Union Tribune: “But what keeps me going, even on the hardest days, are my patients. There are cats and dogs with chronic disease that I’ve been seeing for years, and getting to know them and their families is a privilege.
Fincham-Gray also describes the pets she has adopted and how she created a work-life balance with her boyfriend. Nancy Bent commented in Booklist that Fincham-Gray “has created a wonderfully introspective look at the role of the veterinarian.” A Publishers Weekly contributor declared that anecdotes of Fincham-Gray’s furry patients will appeal to most readers, and “The medical aspects of the narrative will likely draw future veterinarians to the book.” With warmth and humor, “Fincham-Gray offers a unique, insider perspective on the universal experience of owning an animal, and writes with the same tenderness she brings to her patients,” according to a writer on the Warwick’s website.
When Fincham-Gray addresses delivering bad news to pet owners, the heart-wrenching loss of pets, and euthanasia, Terri Schlichenmeyer commented on the Keizer Times Online: “Seriously, I defy you not to cry. Nah, it’s going to be impossible. If you’re someone who loves a four-footed kid, ‘My Patients and Other Animals’ won’t let you stay dry-eyed for long….you’re going to enjoy the almost-[James] Herriot-type beginning of this animal-loving delight.” However, as Schlichenmeyer pointed out, there are cringe-worthy episodes in the book dealing with old-time veterinary practices, animals in pain, and abandonment.
Fincham-Gray handles other serious subjects, such as her struggle to improve her relationships with pet owners, especially those who are disinterested in their pet’s care, and the way treatment is usually dependent on the owners’ ability to pay. The book “is at its best when the author is at her nerviest, removing the romantic sheen from her profession and replacing it with a more realistic and complicated portrait. If it’s sometimes tragic, it’s also consistently rooted in compassion,” said Mark Athitakis in a review online at USA Today.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2018, Nancy Bent, review of My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian’s Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope, p. 6.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2018, review of My Patients and Other Animals.
ONLINE
Keizer Times Online, http://www.keizertimes.com/ (April 16, 2018), Terri Schlichenmeyer, review of My Patients and Other Animals.
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (April 1, 2018), review of My Patients and Other Animals.
San Diego Union Tribune Online, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/ (April 8, 2018), Denise Davidson, author interview.
USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/ (April 17, 2018), Mark Athitakis, review of My Patients and Other Animals.
Warwick’s, https://www.warwicks.com/ (April 10, 2018), review of My Patients and Other Animals.
About
2. Herefordshire, England. Photographer: Norman Fincham
Herefordshire, England. Photographer: Norman Fincham
Suzy Fincham-GraySuzy Fincham-Gray is a veterinarian and an author. Her first book, My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian’s Stories of Love, Loss and Hope will be released by Spiegel and Grau on April 10, 2018.
Suzy grew up on the English-Welsh border and, although she has lived in the States for almost twenty years, her accent is still strong enough for her to be recognized as a Brit most of the time. She is a board-certified small animal internal medicine specialist: She takes care of dogs and cats who’ve been referred by a family veterinarian for the treatment of complex medical problems. If you’d like to learn more about what specialist veterinarians do you can visit www.vetspecialists.com.
Outside of the hospital, Suzy has earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Riverside, Palm Desert. Her writing explores the role veterinarians play in the human-animal bond and in the narrative of caring for those we love when they are sick.
When she’s not writing or caring for patients she can be found spending time with her human and animal family, including three cats, a dog, a husband and a daughter. Naturally, the animals outnumber the people.
Follow Suzy’s blog, Cat Scans and Dog•noses for pet and veterinarian medicine news, fun pet facts—and maybe the occasional funny pet video.
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© 2018 Suzy Fincham-Gray
Local veterinarian shares stories of unforgettable patients
Denise Davidson
April 8, 2018
Research strongly suggests that humans who cohabit with pets — especially dogs and cats — live longer. Health benefits include stress reduction and social support. They provide unconditional love and become family members, too.
“My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian’s Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope” is San Diego author Dr. Suzy Fincham-Gray’s first book. She will talk about her career and love of helping pets at Warwick’s on Tuesday night.
Q: What is one of the best life lessons you learned treating animals?
A: Without a doubt, the best part of my career as a veterinarian is my patients. I am still amazed on a regular basis by the lessons my patients have taught me. What resonates the most is to live in the moment. If I diagnose cancer in a cat or dog, the diagnosis doesn’t change their behavior, they don’t look at the world differently, and they don’t worry about what the future holds.
Q: What motivated you to become a veterinarian?
A: It was a love of science that first drew me to veterinary medicine. From the age of 13, I spent every available school vacation volunteering at vet hospitals, animal shelters, dairy and sheep farms, and even a hedgehog hospital.
Q: How have your own pets affected your relationship with your clients?
A: My pets have easily taught me as much as veterinary textbooks and conferences about our relationships with the animals in our lives. Experiencing the illnesses and deaths of my own pets has given me a clearer and deeper understanding of the emotional distress my clients experience when their loved ones are sick.
Q: What is a rewarding part of your career? The hardest?
A: Unfortunately, my career as an internal medicine specialist means that I typically see the sickest dogs and cats with conditions that are difficult to diagnose and treat. But what keeps me going, even on the hardest days, are my patients. There are cats and dogs with chronic disease that I’ve been seeing for years, and getting to know them and their families is a privilege. Having to break the news of a grave prognosis or terminal diagnosis can be very challenging, and witnessing a family’s grief for the loss of a beloved pet is always hard. Performing euthanasia is not the hardest part of the job for a sick, suffering pet with a grave prognosis, because it is comforting to know that I am able to help ease their passing. But it is the emotional distress that owners feel during this time that continues to be difficult, no matter the number of times I’ve helped a family through it.
Q: Why did you want to be a writer?
A: Literature has always been a very important part of my life. I am an avid reader and the type of person who takes a book everywhere “just in case.” Through the written word, I was able to explore difficult experiences in a new and valuable way. In the genre of nonfiction, Atul Gawande and Mary Roach are my two major inspirations. Reading fiction has taught me a lot about how to tell a compelling story and create convincing characters. Iain Banks, Neil Gaiman, Ann Patchett and Vikram Seth are all authors whose works I have read more than once and typically refuse to lend.
Q: What are some of the best medical advances you’ve seen in the past 10 years?
A: Over the last decade, veterinary medicine has seen some truly incredible advances. One of the biggest steps forward has been in the realm of genetic disease testing in dogs. Our human influence on dog breeding has resulted in hundreds of serious, and potentially deadly, genetic diseases occurring in our canine companions with alarming regularity. The wider availability and improved coverage of pet health insurance has also had a positive effect on small-animal veterinary medicine.
Q: How do you find equilibrium when you have hard cases?
A: My human and animal family is an incredibly important source of strength and inspiration for me. And I often rely on a dog walk or cat snuggle to help ease the stress of a difficult day.
Q: What do you enjoy about living in San Diego?
A: The wonderful dog-walking weather. It’s never a bad day to take the dogs out, and they and I appreciate that. San Diego is a very pet-friendly city. Our cats also really enjoy all the sunny spots they get to lounge in all day.
Fincham-Gray, Suzanne: MY PATIENTS AND OTHER ANIMALS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Fincham-Gray, Suzanne MY PATIENTS AND OTHER ANIMALS Spiegel & Grau (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 4, 10 ISBN: 978-0-8129-9818-4
Affecting dispatches from the life of an animal doctor.
Fincham-Gray, who has had a successful career in both Europe and the United States, recalls growing up just walking distance from an animal clinic on the Welsh border where she volunteered and groomed her career aspirations. Despite a childhood spent without a family pet, her love of animals flourished thanks in part to her father, a veterinary lab microbiologist who generously shared an appreciation for science with her. Overcoming an allergy to horses, insecurities at university, and demanding anatomy classes, she excelled at veterinary school and realized her dream. In this affably written amalgam of pedagogic and heartwarming material, the author chronicles her early years as a medical professional, particularly the culture shock of learning American vet medicine throughout her internship and the unique animals she encountered along the way. Readers meet emergency room patients like Missy, the tortoiseshell cat who was impaled by an arrow, and Tiger, who was saddled with a severe bladder blockage but managed to recover and thrive. Fincham-Gray also writes about how she endured the crushing heartbreak of euthanizing a dog with terminal pancreatitis and bidding farewell to her own aging cat. Once separated from the "protective custody of academia," the author worked in private practices on both the East and West coasts. She discusses how she cured a septic Irish wolfhound named Grayling, a Mexican-born canine who'd contracted "the oldest continuously surviving cancer in nature," and Sweetie, a young pit bull terrier whose diagnosis and patient care are the most complicated in the book, medically, financially, and emotionally. Fincham-Gray also imparts cautionary information on the medical consequences of obese pets. Pet fanatics and animal lovers in general will savor these bittersweet stories exploring the enduring human-animal bond.
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A fervent, anecdotal memoir infused with heart, compassion, and a natural love for animals on every page.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fincham-Gray, Suzanne: MY PATIENTS AND OTHER ANIMALS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb.
2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527247894 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=084f54b6. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527247894
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My Patients and Other Animals: A
Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss,
and Hope
Nancy Bent
Booklist.
114.14 (Mar. 15, 2018): p6. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope. By Suzanne Fincham-Gray.
Apr. 2018. 288p. Spiegel & Grau, $27 (9780812998184). 636.089.
Newly minted veterinarian Fincham-Gray arrived in the U.S. from London, about to take up an internship in small-animal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. One of her first patients was Hercules, a Doberman with a gunshot wound in his chest, and we are off and running with a beautifully written look at modern veterinary medicine. As Fincham-Gray relates the steps she and the clinic take to save the dog, clearly explaining the medical terminology, she shares her realization of an emotional attachment to her animal patients that she hadn't anticipated. These two themes--the ever-evolving state of veterinary medicine and the bond between humans and animals--are explored in a series of chapters, each centering around a single case. The author also weaves in tales of her personal life, such as how adopting a cat gave her a new insight into feline medicine, or the fact that moving in with her boyfriend forced her to balance her constant drive for working with the needs of a new relationship. Fincham-Gray, who also has an MFA in creative writing, has created a wonderfully introspective look at the role of the veterinarian.-- Nancy Bent
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bent, Nancy. "My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss, and
Hope." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2018, p. 6. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com
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/apps/doc/A533094352/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=dea86669. Accessed 4 June 2018. Gale Document Number: GALE|A533094352
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My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope
Suzanne Fincham-Gray. Random/Spiegel & Grau, $27 (288p) ISBN 978-0-8129-9818-4
Veterinarian Fincham-Gray explores in her candid debut the intricacies of her profession from inside the medical exam room, where she has worked for 26 years, diagnosing some of the most inscrutable animal illnesses. She describes the shock of encountering her first canine gunshot victim as an intern at an animal hospital in Philadelphia and recounts the frantic efforts to save a young dachshund suffering from pancreatitis after eating a hot dog. When a pit bull arrives in her office desperately needing a blood transfusion, Fincham-Gray makes the difficult decision to draw blood from her own dog to save its life. She recounts sleepless nights worrying about her charges (and how she will deal with her own pets’ inevitable mortality) and the challenge of balancing an animal’s needs with what its owners can afford. Fincham-Gray explains the diagnostic practices, the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the history of rabies, and outlines genetic disorders of purebred dogs (without sermonizing), all in accessible language. The medical aspects of the narrative will likely draw future veterinarians to the book, but it’s the tales of Fincham-Gray’s patients that will keep general readers hooked. (Apr.)
This review has been updated to reflect the book's new title.
A heartwarming literary debut, My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian’s Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope by Suzy Fincham-Gray, explores the relationships we share with the animals in our lives, and the decisions we must make when they become sick.
Since she was a young girl making do with imaginary pets, Fincham-Gray knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. After graduating from school in London, she began a journey that would take her from her home along the English-Welsh border to an Emergency Room in inner-city Philadelphia, where she treated her first (but not last) dog rushed in with a gunshot wound, to eventually landing in San Diego, where she now works at a private practice. Throughout her career, she has collected thousands of stories that have shaped both her personal and professional life.
Each chapter of My Patients and Other Animals is centered around, and named after, an animal Fincham-Gray has treated, drawing readers into her consulting room, and behind the scenes to understand the complex challenges veterinarians face. We meet, among others, Zeke, a 16lb silver-brown tabby who suddenly stops eating; Ned, a rescue dog from Mexico, with an unexpected illness picked up from Tijuana; and Sweetie, a young pit bull terrier, whose emotional story illustrates the lengths doctors and owners will go to save a pet. Each animal comes with an owner equally as memorable, as they experience varying traumas of their own. Entwined with stories of her patients, Fincham-Gray shares intimate details about her own pets that found their way into her life when she least expected it, and when she needed them the most.
Fincham-Gray offers a unique, insider perspective on the universal experience of owning an animal, and writes with the same tenderness she brings to her patients. Rich in warmth and humor, My Patients and Other Animals is a memorable story about the compassion, healing, and joy that animals bring to our lives.
“My Patients and Other Animals” by Suzy Fincham-Gray
Posted by Terri Schlichenmeyer | Apr 16, 2018 | Book Review,
c.2018, Spiegel & Grau
$27.00 / $36.00 Canada
288 pages
Book review by Terri Schlichenmeyer
Lions and tigers and bears, Oh, my!
You probably don’t have any of those in your house right now – at least not in their full-size versions – but the kitty and puppy lying nearby might sometimes seem as ferocious as their larger cousins. Oh, my, as you’ll see in the new book “My Patients and Other Animals” by Suzy Fincham-Gray, we’re wild for our pets!
Even at the tender age of fourteen, young Suzy Fincham knew that she wanted to be a veterinarian. That was how old she was when she began volunteering at a local animal clinic – the same Herefordshire-area clinic where later, as a veterinarian-school graduate, she’d “seen practice” and learned a thing or three about larger animals.
While that was helpful and Fincham was tempted to stay in Great Britain , she knew that her heart was with cats and dogs, not sheep and cattle. With a lump in her throat and a multi-year plan in mind, she came to America to attend Cornell University , which led her to the University of Pennsylvania ’s veterinary teaching hospital.
It was there that she came to understand that the relationship between people and their pets baffled her. Fincham hadn’t grown up with pets in her childhood household so, for better understanding and because she was lonely, she adopted a cat, then another, and a third. With her own pets in mind, it was easy to see human connections in pet-ownership, but at the same time, Fincham’s impatience caused conflict with co-workers. Looking for a better fit, job-wise, she moved to Baltimore where her family grew to include a man and a hyphen; then to San Diego , where they gained a long-awaited dog.
In her career, Fincham-Gray has met animals that left their pawprints on her heart and lessons in her head. There was Hercules, a Doberman and her first GSW. A wolfhound taught her that her instincts and sub-conscious were both good tools to rely on. A jaundiced cat taught her that limits can be moved; she learned that hasty decisions are the worst ones to make; and she discovered that it’s hard when a pet dies, no matter whose pet it is…
Seriously, I defy you not to cry.
Nah, it’s going to be impossible. If you’re someone who loves a four-footed kid, “My Patients and Other Animals” won’t let you stay dry-eyed for long.
And yet, much as you’re going to enjoy the almost-Herriot-type beginning of this animal-loving delight and as much as you’ll eat up most of it, beware that there are things here you won’t like. Author Suzy Fincham-Gray describes old-time practices that may make readers gasp. She recalls dogs in pain, cats near death, injuries, abandonment, and not all the endings are happy. Don’t cry.
The good news is that those cringe-worthy bits are balanced by thoughtful observations on the human-animal bond, dogs-dogs-dogs, “moggies,” and bit of romance. For a dog- or cat-person, even despite a few shudders, that makes “My Patients and Other Animals” a can’t-miss book. Being without it could be un-bear-able.
For this vet, sometimes the owners are the most difficult patients: New book
Mark Athitakis, Special to USA TODAY Published 11:36 a.m. ET April 17, 2018
Within the first 60 pages of her memoir of life as a veterinarian, Suzy Fincham-Gray has shot an ailing horse, handled a dog with a gunshot wound and treated a cat impaled by an arrow.
As a teenager in England, Fincham-Gray was enchanted by the TV adaptations of James Herriot’s best-selling books, which made a vet’s life seem as easygoing as a country stroll. She’s grown up to write My Patients and Other Animals (Spiegel & Grau, 267 pp., ★★★ out of four), an engrossing, visceral counterpoint.
Her “baptism by fire” began at the University of Pennsylvania, where long hours as an intern introduced her to all manner of animal crises, including but not limited to dogs who’ve ingested “socks and wallets, cassette tapes, balls and other toys, unopened ten-pound bags of dog, cat, and even bird food, and disgusting rotten trash can contents best left unidentified.”
Within a few years, at stints in Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Diego, she mastered the art of diagnosing life-threatening ailments of a variety of pets, and much of the book is dedicated to her more challenging cases.
A miniature dachshund is in rapid decline from pancreatitis brought on a steady diet of table scraps. An ornery house cat named Tiger is laid low by an enlarged bladder but keeps trying to live up to his name. A dog has an inexplicable infection whose source would be easier to discern if he weren’t a hard-to-move 140-pound Irish wolfhound.
Fincham-Gray delivers each of these pets’ stories episodically, as if arranging them for her own TV series. But underlying every animal story are two human themes: Fincham-Gray’s struggle to improve her relationships with pet owners, and the way treatment is usually influenced (or walled off) by their ability to pay. One of Sweetie’s owners is disinterested and the other is financially strapped, which means Fincham-Gray has to cut tests and treatments.
“My frustration was familiar and inextricable,” she writes. “What I wanted to do and what I could do for my patient were not the same.”
Indeed, compromise is a central element of her diagnostic process. For a vet like Fincham-Gray, constantly moved to save an animal at whatever cost, price tags for treatment are a frustration. But in time she learns to keep her testiness in check and improve her bedside manner:
“Just as I had discovered how best to approach an aggressive dog or nervous cat," she writes," I also had to modify my tone, manner, and vocabulary based on the people sitting across the exam room.”
Fincham-Gray quotes a T-shirt that reads: “Real doctors treat more than one species.” The downside for veterinarians, though, is the brevity of the lives they treat, and the particular agony of owners who must decide to euthanize their pets — or who decide not to, “leading their beloved companions down a futile and painful path.”
My Patients and Other Animals is at its best when the author is at her nerviest, removing the romantic sheen from her profession and replacing it with a more realistic and complicated portrait. If it’s sometimes tragic, it’s also consistently rooted in compassion.