2023_NorthStarVets_Pets_Digital_Issue

SUPPORT
SYSTEM
Veterinary oncologist
Dr. Renee
Alsarraf battled
cancer at the
same time as her
boxer, Newton.
Healing Power
A MONTCLAIR ONCOLOGY VETERINARIAN REVEALS THE LESSONS SHE LEARNED ABOUT HER
OWN CANCER DIAGNOSIS FROM THE DOGS SHE TREATED.
PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF JOSEPH FRAZZ
Montclair-based veterinary
oncologist Dr.
Renee Alsarraf has
been in practice since
1991, treating pets with
cancer. But when she was diagnosed
with metastatic cancer herself in 2018,
she realized how much her own patients
could help her.
In her book, Sit, Stay, Heal: What Dogs
Can Teach Us About Living Well, Alsarraf
writes about the dogs she has treated in her
career and what she’s learned from them to
help her on her own journey. Her own dog,
Newton, was diagnosed with cancer only
months after her own diagnosis.
What made you want to become a
veterinarian?
I have wanted to be a veterinarian since
age 7, and I have never wavered. But even
looking back at photos of myself when I
was a little younger, I always gravitated
toward animals. I felt that not only did I
understand them, but that they understood
me, and they made me feel whole.
They made me feel happy.
You knew when you were a child what
career path you wanted to follow?
Yes, and people would try to talk me
out of becoming a veterinarian. I would
hear that it was easier to get into medical
school than veterinary school, or a horrible
one—that I would make more money as a
human doctor. But I never wavered. It was
really a calling.
How did you end up specializing in
veterinary oncology?
Oddly, I have always been drawn to it. In
part, I wondered if it was sort of a genetic
thing, since my father was a human
medical oncologist. I always thought
perhaps there was a link there, except that
he never brought his work home with him,
meaning he never talked about it. Then,
the summer after my sophomore year of
veterinary school, I did an externship for
six weeks in New York City at the Animal
Medical Center. I applied for oncology. I
was incredibly fortunate to get it. And that
externship changed my life. I knew then
that I wanted to treat cancer patients. Even
though the topic seems so sad, and it is a
very trying and draining job, I absolutely
love it. It fills me right back up to be able to
give a pet family another holiday or maybe
a few more summers, and to really get to
know that family.
Which animals do you treat?
I treat dogs, cats, birds, bunny rabbits,
ferrets. They can all have cancer. You don’t
really hear much about this, but even dinosaurs
had a fair amount of cancer. They
had a type of bone cancer called osteosarcoma.
They also got leukemia. Cancer has
truly been around since the dawn of time.
I read that when you were at Michigan
State, you organized a pet-loss
support group. Can you talk about the
loss people experience when they
have a pet that dies? I’m not sure people
realize how great that loss can be.
Oh my gosh, not at all. I was a senior veterinary
student following around a senior clinician,
and I would see these families who
were so sad (about their pets), and it wasn’t
necessarily cancer. It could have been old age
or kidney disease or heart disease. And they
Pet Perspective 9