Adobe Animal Hospital

Brennen McKenzie

School: University of Pennsylvania, 2001

Special Interests: soft-tissue surgery, evidence-based medicine, emergency and critical care

Pets: Gromit (a 15 year old shelter mutt, Pearl our rat, a tank full of fish, and a corn snake named Tesserae (Tess for short)

Prior to becoming a veterinarian, I worked teaching English composition, in numerous clerical jobs, on a fishing boat in Alaska, running a pet food store, in a baseball card factory, and as a waiter. I'm not one of the folks who read James Herriott and decided to be a vet as a child. I loved science and literature, but I chose science as the more satisfying lifestyle. I tried to be Jane Goodall and did a Master's Degree in primate behavior at CSU San Francisco, doing my thesis research with the chimpanzees at the San Francisco Zoo.

After several years trying to make a living in primate behavior research, including running a breeding colony of rhesus monkeys on an island in South Carolina and doing behavioral therapy and enrichment work for captive primates in a research facility in Texas, I stumbled into veterinary medicine after about ten years later than most of my classmates. It has proven to be the ideal choice because it provides work that is interesting and has, I think, some real moral or social value, and yet it is an established profession in which I can make a living.

Outside of the veterinary world, I'm a voracious reader with particular fondness for science fiction, history, philosophy, and 15th - 18th century English literature. I love to travel, though I do less of it now that I have a daughter and a grownup job. Recent jaunts include climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, running with the bulls in Pamplona, and hiking/bicycling through Laos. I scuba dive when I can (which is not often these days), I love hiking and playing my mandolin and Irish Pennywhistle, and I recently achieved my blackbelt in Shaolin Kempo Karate. In my "spare time" I am studying for my Master's in Epidemiology through the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and I am incoming President of t he Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Association. Being a father is, of course, my favorite and most time consuming after-hours activity (my daughter is 11). My wife has put up with me for 16 years now, for which I am grateful every day.

My personal website can be found at http://www.skeptvet.com

My personal voicemail: (650) 209 - 9366

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