Linda Rhodes, author of the forthcoming memoir 'Breaking the Barnyard Barrier,' shares an exclusive essay about her trailblazing career as a large animal veterinarian
Courtesy of Linda Rhodes
NEED TO KNOW
- Author and veterinarian Linda Rhodes pens an exclusive essay for PEOPLE
- The accomplished vet recalls the struggles she faced at the start of her career
- Breaking the Barnyard Barrier: A Woman Veterinarian Paves the Way by Linda Rhodes will hit shelves on Feb. 17
After a dozen failed interviews for a position as a large animal veterinarian, I was desperate. It was the spring of 1978 and I was about to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania College of Veterinary Medicine with top grades. But these veterinarians who advertised open positions didn’t want a woman in their practices. Women couldn’t possibly do this man’s job. They weren’t brawny enough, or tough enough. They’d never seen a woman do this job. Wouldn’t she just break down in tears when she couldn’t cut it? After all, it required wading around in cow manure, sticking your arm up a cow’s rectum to check for pregnancy, grabbing a cow’s head to shove a pill down her throat. How could a woman do that? There was no way to argue with this logic except to show up at my job interviews and demonstrate my skill, and that is what I was there to do.
I dressed for yet another interview in my newly washed coveralls, my stethoscope tucked in my pocket, and a bandana tied in place to keep my hair out of my eyes, no makeup. My high rubber boots were scrubbed clean. I had spent the last four years training for a job in large animal practice, specifically concentrating on dairy cows. This job would be a perfect place for me to start — a large animal practice focusing on taking care of the many dairies in central New York state. Now all I had to do was show the veterinarian who owned the practice, Dr. Sherman, that I could do it.
We rode out to a dairy in Dr. Sherman’s truck. My first test? A 600 pound bull who needed a ring put in his nose. I won’t spoil the whole story — let’s just say I left with a bruised knee, a runaway bull and no job. I had thoughts of giving up but I was determined to prove a woman could make a great vet, if only someone would give me a chance.
I had two problems. First, the men believed it wasn’t possible for me to be a large animal veterinarian, and second, I worried they were right. For a woman trying to break into any profession that has traditionally been male-dominated these are familiar issues. Mathematics, auto repair, finance, plumbing. You walk into a room, or in my case a barn, and you can almost feel the tension. They are waiting for you to fail, which will prove them right. It is hard not to let that get into your head and make you doubt yourself.
Courtesy of Linda Rhodes
Eventually I did get a job taking care of cows in Utah and Idaho, and after a few years, the dairymen not only accepted me but bragged that the “lady cow vet” took care of their cows. How did I go from close to total rejection to grudging respect? I showed up. Every day, in the rain, in the freezing cold, in the middle of the night. Even when I was scared I couldn’t handle a situation, I showed up anyway, gulping down my fear and jumping in to suture a bleeding wound, deliver a backwards calf, perform a surgery to untwist a stomach.
One day I got an emergency call that started my heart pounding. The dairyman said he had a cow that was bleeding buckets from a leg wound. It was pouring rain, and he said the cow was outside, collapsed in a mess of manure and soaked straw. It was one of many emergency calls when I got off the phone overwhelmed with the thought that this was the one I just might not be able to handle. As you’ll read, I did handle it, but not without a few choice cuss words that got me into trouble with the Mormon dairyman.
Later that week, I asked for advice from my favorite woman large animal veterinarian, Dr. Elaine Hammel, a professor at University of Pennsylvania.
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“How do you manage when you get an emergency call and you are terrified that you can’t handle it, but you have to go to the farm and handle it anyway?” In large animal practice it often is just you, what equipment you have in your truck, and if you are lucky, a strong dairyman to help in the middle of the night. There is no clean hospital with good lighting and sterile instruments, no staff, no backup.
Kevin Edge
“You don’t stop being afraid,” Dr. Hammel told me. "You just stop showing it.”
Being a pioneer took a toll on my marriage. I felt that, if I failed at work, it would set back other women trying to break into the profession, so I felt I had to succeed on behalf of all women. This left no time for a relationship. I was never home in time for dinner. Getting up in the middle of the night for a calving, followed by a full day of work, meant I was too tired to even have a conversation. My life was my work, and there was no way to adjust the schedule to accommodate what my husband needed from me. I resented my male colleagues who had stay-at-home wives, doing all the housework, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and were used to their husband’s schedules and work demands. That sounded like a sweet deal to me!
The deeper I got into my work, the farther apart we drifted, but neither of us wanted to face the fact that the marriage wasn’t working. It took a couple of catastrophes, a death in my family, my husband having a serious accident, to make us admit that we had to part.
University of Nevada Press
Over the years, I have thought a lot about what gave me the grit and drive to not give up. Having Dr. Hammel as my role model was critical. Finding a woman who has gone before, whether it’s a teacher, another woman in a similar job, even some woman in history who has tackled the profession you are entering helps you believe in yourself when things get rough. When I worried I wasn’t strong enough I would tell myself, “Remember how Dr. Hammel tackled this.” She pointed out that I weigh 130 pounds, the big brawny guys might weigh 200 pounds, but the damn cow weighs 1,500 pounds. If the cow wants to move in one direction, and the veterinarian wants her to move in another, that 70 pound difference isn’t going to make the slightest difference. She is going where she wants. Dr. Hammel and a few other women pioneers helped me have faith that good restraint with ropes, potent anesthetics and the right attitude would allow me to do what I needed to do.
Things have changed, and for the better. Even though our culture still reinforces the stereotypes of what kind of professions a woman can or should do, many women today work in non-traditional jobs. Veterinary medicine has changed dramatically too, with women making up 80-90% of new graduates. You can find many women dairy veterinarians in the barn, and women are taking leadership positions in the profession. Now, women are demanding — and in many cases getting — accommodations that enable a more balanced life, such as limited or no time on emergency call and flexibility in working hours. These changes are good for everyone’s family. I like to think that I and the women of my generation had some role in that transformation. We networked with other women, sharing stories of the sacrifices we made, and brainstorming ideas of how practices could be structured to be more family friendly. We insisted that being on call four or five times a week was not sustainable and got our bosses to share the load, or hire more help. We created a community of women veterinarians who supported each other and found new ways to practice that were good for business and good for women.
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After six years in veterinary practice, I went back to school, got a PhD and took a job in the pharmaceutical industry, making new medicines for animals. At every step of my career, the lessons I learned while practicing in Utah built the foundation of my professional journey. Show up no matter the weather, don’t let them see how scared you are, work your heart out, pay no attention to folks who think you don’t belong and do your best. I learned you don’t have to be the strongest person in the barn. You just have to be the one who doesn’t give up.
Breaking the Barnyard Barrier: A Woman Veterinarian Paves the Way by Linda Rhodes will hit shelves on Feb. 17 via University of Nevada Press and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
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