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Force #4: Decisions made far from the clinic floor. There was a time in academic medicine when most decisions were made within earshot. You walked down the hall. You knocked on the department chair’s door, or the hospital administrator’s door if it was a clinical issue. You talked it through. A new piece of equipment. A schedule change. A clinical protocol. A hire. It wasn’t perfect, but it was human. Decisions were made by the people closest to the work. The people who under

After doing a book reading of my latest children’s picture book, Bin Chicken Abroad , to a 5th grade class, I received thank you letters from each of the kids I had read to. This is one of them: It mentions that I am perceived as cool . In fact, it suggests that I may be the coolest . A word from my generation. I was struck by the use of this word by a twelve-year-old. The letter itself is full of everything one hopes for when visiting a classroom. Enthusiasm, sincerity, a

I remember the moment the valley opened. We had been climbing through the Andes all morning, the road tracing ridges where clouds brushed the hillsides and the air smelled clean enough to drink. The land felt ancient and patient. Terraces, scattered farms, eucalyptus leaning into the wind. Then, as we descended, the color changed. At first it was only a glint. Pale rectangles catching the sun. I thought they were ponds, or frost. But around the next bend the truth came into f

After a snowfall in a city, the planners’ intentions briefly become visible. Sidewalks form tidy lines. Crosswalks sit where they were designed to be. The grid asserts itself. But within hours, something else appears. A narrow trench cut through a snowbank. A diagonal track across a lawn. A faint dirt line branching from the official path. Urban planners call these desire paths . The unofficial routes people create when the prescribed one does not quite work. They emerge slow

There are moments in public policy when science quietly accumulates in the background for decades, until suddenly it must step forward and speak with a single voice. In the United States, the Endangerment Finding was one of those moments. Most people outside environmental law have never heard of it. Yet it sits at the foundation of modern U.S. climate policy, shaping regulations on cars, power plants, methane emissions, and industrial pollution. Without it, much of the feder

Force #3: The quadruple mandate. There is a particular look I have started to recognize in young faculty. It isn’t incompetence. It isn’t indifference. It certainly isn’t lack of commitment. It’s fatigue. Not the ordinary kind. Not the end-of-a-long-week kind that a good night’s sleep fixes. Something deeper. A thinning of spirit. As though the light that brought them into academia in the first place has quietly dimmed. Early in my career, exhaustion usually meant one thing:

Force #2: Administrative drag. Not many years ago, I tried to hire a young neurologist. Bright. Capable. Thoughtful with students. The sort of clinician you recognize immediately. The type who listens carefully before speaking and whose patients seem calmer simply because she is in the room. She wanted to teach. She wanted to build a program. She wanted an academic life. We lost her. Not to salary. Not to a competing offer. We lost her to time. By the time the position descri

Force #1: Financial disparity with private practice There is an easy explanation for the thinning corridors of academia. Money. It is the first thing everyone says, often with a shrug, as if the matter were settled. Of course, they leave. They can earn twice as much in private practice. And it’s true. A boarded neurologist, surgeon, or internist can step out of a university clinic on Friday and, by Monday morning, double - sometimes triple - their salary in specialty practice

When I first visited India 10 years ago, veterinary care felt deeply local. A single veterinarian. A modest clinic. A hand-painted sign. Perhaps a ceiling fan turning slowly above an exam table. Medicine lived close to the community. Today, something more complex is forming. The pet food boom has created momentum, and momentum attracts capital. What begins with kibble rarely ends there. India’s pet market is now drawing two very different forces at once: Global nutrition comp

Until recently, dogs in India ate what families ate. A ladle of rice. Lentils. Chapati ends. Perhaps a splash of milk. Food was shared, not purchased. It came from the kitchen, not a factory. But walk through any modern Indian city today - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad - and you begin to see something new. Brightly colored sacks of kibble stacked beside soap powders and cooking oil. Pet supplements in pharmacies. Grooming products delivered by app within the hour. Quiet

Last week I read that National Veterinary Associates (NVA) had banned elective declaw procedures across its 1,400 hospitals. My first reaction was simple: Well done NVA! Declawing has always troubled me. Removing the distal phalanx of each digit for “convenience” never sat comfortably beside the oath most of us took to relieve suffering. If fewer cats undergo that surgery, that is almost certainly a humane step forward. But my second reaction lingered longer. Not about the pr

I am prompted to write this essay following a recent article in the Sacramento Business Journal announcing a $120 million gift to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. According to the university, $80 million of the gift will fund a new small-animal teaching hospital as part of the school’s $750 million Veterinary Medical Complex expansion. UC Davis said its existing veterinary hospital treats about 50,000 patients annually. The expansion is expected to allow care for u

These Words Are Not Interchangeable. Veterinary medicine relies on language not only to describe what we see, but to shape how we think. Few word choices reveal this more clearly than the casual substitution of disease , disorder , and syndrome . They are often used as if they mean the same thing. They do not. To veterinarians, these distinctions matter because they guide diagnosis, investigation, treatment, and prognosis. To clients, they matter because each word carries a d

Some terminology problems in veterinary medicine are obvious. Others are so familiar that they disappear into the background. The way we describe limb location - front , back , fore , hind - falls squarely into the second category. These words are convenient. They feel intuitive. They are widely understood. They are also anatomically weak . Why this distinction matters In veterinary medicine, language does more than describe position. It encodes: Developmental origin, Skel

Universities should celebrate generosity. They should say “thank you.” They should acknowledge the people who make progress possible. But there is a line, somewhere between appreciation and amplification, where gratitude turns into something else. Something louder. Something performative . Something that begins to feel less like stewardship and more like spectacle. And lately, I’ve been wondering whether we’ve crossed that line. In the most recent issue of Activities and Impa

It’s impossible not to notice. The trash is everywhere. Along footpaths and medians, in temple courtyards and outside shops, at the edges of railway platforms and beneath flyovers. It gathers in corners like an afterthought. When people sweep, they often sweep into a corner, not away . The pile becomes neater, but it doesn’t disappear. What’s striking isn’t just the volume. It’s the type . Much of it is lightweight: crinkled plastic wrappers, foil-lined packets, single-use s

Somewhere along the way, we began saying it out loud. The best veterinary school in the world. It appears in brochures. In fundraising decks. In speeches. On banners at conferences. Sometimes it’s said jokingly. Sometimes aspirationally. Increasingly, it is said as if it were settled fact. And every time I hear it, I wince a little. Not because I don’t love the place. Not because I don’t believe in its people. But because I’ve lived long enough, and worked in enough corners o

In a world filled with constant accumulation, the Swedish practice of döstädning , (pronounced “doh-sted-ning”) or Swedish death cleaning , offers a refreshing perspective on decluttering. Unlike the harsh urgency that death cleaning might imply, this method is a gentle , thoughtful , and intentional approach to tidying up. Döstädning is not just for yourself but for those who will one day inherit your belongings. What Is Swedish Death Cleaning? Popularized by Margareta

Every so often I hear an announcement that sounds, at first blush, entirely good. More opportunity. More access. More care. More growth. This week it was a short “Minute with Mark” message from the dean at UC Davis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ikWbYZqr4 The promise was straightforward and upbeat: Increase the veterinary class by hundreds of students. Treat tens of thousands more animals. Launch new programs. Support new research. It is the kind of language donors like.

This image was created using artificial intelligence and is intended as a conceptual illustration. It does not depict a real building and associated signage. If you were to gather the former professors of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine - those now emeriti and those no longer living – and ask them about the renaming of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine to the Joan & Sanford I. Weill School of Veterinary Medicine : You would not hear a single opinion. But