2008 TVMA President Dr. Anmarie Macfarland
by Lindsey Oechsle
Dr. Anmarie Macfarland’s mom always told her, “If you want to change something, you have to step up to the plate. You can’t expect anyone else to do it for you, and you can’t sit around and whine about it unless you’re willing to try and change it.” That is why Dr. Macfarland got involved in TVMA, and that is why we are excited that she is the 2008 President.
Born in Long Beach, CA, Dr. Macfarland moved to San Antonio as a child. Her father was an engineer and her mother was an RN. She first recalls a desire to work with animals in the fifth grade because of her teacher, Ms. Baker, who kept several animals in the classroom. Though she originally considered becoming an oceanographer or a jockey, she had decided to be a veterinarian by age ten and never turned back. For her tenth birthday, she received riding lessons and went on to show and train horses until she was 18.
Her love of horses continued into college and she became a member of the polo team at Texas A&M University where she received a Bachelors degree in Biomedical Science. Upon graduation from the TAMU College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Macfarland moved to New Orleans, LA to do small animal and racetrack work with Dr. Max Begue in the French Quarter. She also worked at Jefferson Downs in the Fairgrounds doing track work. After nine months of 19-hour days in the Big Easy, she decided to move back to the Lone Star State.
She ran a small animal clinic in Dallas for a couple years, and when she felt it was time to move on, she moved back home to San Antonio. In San Antonio, she did relief work for a couple months before she was hired as an associate at Blue Cross Animal Clinic with Dr. Bob Bauml. She worked happily at Blue Cross for three years until she got a call in 1996 from the Loop 410 Veterinary Hospital, where she had worked through undergraduate and vet school. When they asked her to be a partner, she was thrilled.
“I had always wanted to move back to this practice,” she admits. “I worked there for a year before I bought in, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Involvement in organized veterinary medicine is not a new idea for Dr. Macfarland. She has worked for three past presidents of TVMA including Dr. Gerald Parker, Dr. Dennis McIntosh, and Dr. Billy Trimmier. “That definitely gave me the bug of being involved.”
Dr. Macfarland will be the third female president of TVMA, the last of which was ten years ago. I ask her how she feels about this accomplishment. “Kind of special,” she says with excited humility. “In the 104-year history of TVMA leadership, I’m the third one. And to come in behind people like Drs. Bonnie Beaver and Chris Kornegay, I’m in a line of pretty incredible people. It’s a thrill.”
Though we may just be on the brink of it, Dr. Macfarland expects to see more of a change of leadership in veterinary medicine. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in a landslide, but I think that we’ll see more and more women in leadership positions. I would hope that the Executive Board would start to be more reflective of the profession as a whole.”
Now if you think that Dr. Macfarland is going to just breeze through a light year of leadership, you are mistaken. She plans to shake things up during her year as president. Her biggest goal is to lead what will essentially be a sunset review of TVMA. She plans to audit everything from programs like CVE and CVA to staff operations to governance, and evaluate the value and workings of these areas.
“What concerns me is that we tend to do the same things because it’s the way we’ve always done them. We may go through the evaluation and decide to continue to do things the same way, but I think it needs to be looked at with a critical eye, because TVMA is like a big ship, and it can be hard to steer it sometimes. It’s always easier to do the same thing than it is to change, because change is uncomfortable, and you could likely upset someone. If you aren’t getting what you want from these things, then why do we continue to do them the way we’re doing them?
Though she jokes that she’s insane to take on a task like that, Dr. Macfarland understands that that this is not a job for one person. She is a firm believer in spreading and sharing leadership responsibilities. Not only does she value her colleagues’ thoughts and input, but she also understands that once a huge project is broken down, it becomes manageable. In fact, much of this charge came out of discussions at the Executive Committee strategic planning session last year in Santa Barbara.
When she’s not practicing or devoting her time to the veterinary profession, Dr. Macfarland likes to be outdoors. She enjoys gardening, hiking and camping. She plants flowers, herbs and bulbs and tends her asparagus patch. She and her husband Carl live on the Guadalupe River between Blanco and Boerne. Together, they like to canoe and camp. They recently spent their eighth anniversary, as they do every year, in the Basin in Big Bend National Park.
They have four cats and one dog that is half lab, half golden retriever. When Dr. Macfarland told Carl she was bringing the dog home, he said the one condition was that he got to name her. He named her Crony. “Crony?” asked Dr. Macfarland. “Look it up in the dictionary,” Carl told her playfully. “It means long-time friend.” Carl is a character. In fact they both are, and they have a lot of fun together.
Her immediate plans after her presidency are to begin studying to retake her exam for Board certification, which she originally obtained in 2001. She would also like to spend more time with Carl on their new property. They have been building a cabin on 400 acres northwest of Kerrville in Rocksprings, TX.
Photo courtesy of Zelman Platon Brounoff, photographer, www.brounoff.com
