Name

Dr. Helen Fraser

Occupation

Large Animal Veterinarian

I'm a large animal veterinarian at the Montague Vet Clinic in Eastern PEI. I've been in practice for almost eight years. I graduated from the Atlantic Veterinary College in 2016. I’m originally from Nova Scotia and I grew up on a dairy farm, so I have deep roots in agriculture. I always knew that large animal veterinary medicine was what I wanted to do. My husband is from Prince Edward Island, so when I graduated, I worked in New Brunswick for four years and then came back here when a job opened up.

What does a typical day look like for you?

It depends on the time of year. During the spring, I’m on the road all day. But typically I come into the clinic first thing in the morning and look at what my schedule is for the day, check lab results, return phone calls, return emails and then usually I head out on the road for 10am or so. A lot of the work that I do is with cattle, especially dairy cattle, so one of the most common farm calls that I do are herd health calls.

What is a herd health call?

On a herd health call, I go out to the dairy farms and do pregnancy checking and reproductive checks to make sure the farm consistently has cows calving to have a consistent milk production. We make plans for breeding protocols to get cows pregnant and bred back. And then we review other things while I'm on the farm including different management strategies to help improve the health of the animals.

What other work do you do?

We also do a lot of emergency work and sick animal calls. I might get a phone call from a farmer saying they’ve got a cow off feed, or that they have a cow that is down and can't get up, or she's dropped in milk production and I'll do individual animal medicine that way. We offer emergency services for things like birthing difficulty during calvings, foalings or lambing. Sometimes we have to do C sections in cattle, sheeps or goats. I also do some consultation work where I'll give opinions on ventilation in barns and air quality, stocking density, etc. which all have an impact on animal health.

It sounds like you have pretty close relationships with a lot of the farmers.

That’s one of the things I love about large animal work. I spend several hours every two weeks with these farmers. I get to know them really well, hear about everything that's going on, on the farm, from new exciting things like barn builds, or things that aren't going well, like sick animals, or poor production. Part of being a vet is definitely being a people person because a lot of it is communication with the farmers. I really love working with farmers. Farmers are my people. I appreciate the day to day life of farmers, and I know that it is a way of life. It's not just a job. It is a lifestyle. And farmers are just some of the best, most resilient, most hard working people out there. I'm happy to help them keep their farms profitable and make improvements and keep things moving forward.

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