These four credentialed veterinary technicians are at the top of their game—and one of them is AAHA’s 2023 Veterinary Technician of the Year!

Get to know the vet med professionals selected by the Latinx Veterinary Medical Association ( LVMA ) and NEWStat as Latinx influencers to watch .

From a career that started with big hair in the ‘80s and is now heading toward retirement , Vickie Byard, CVT, VTS (Dentistry), has seen enormous changes in vet med for techs, for dentistry, and for patient care . And it all happened because her practice leadership gave her the chance. 

PainTrace is a noninvasive device that measures acute and chronic pain using skin-based electrical activity as an indicator. And it could help us know, once and for all, where animals’ pain is located and how much pain they’re in.

Protecting pangolins is a passion for Canadian wildlife veterinarian Hezy Anholt , DVM , who is currently working in Malawi. She talked with columnist Emily Singler, VMD, about the challenges and urgent need to understand these scaly mammals.

Matt Motta, PhD, and Gabriella Motta, VMD, are a brother-sister research team who (along with fellow researcher Dominik Stecula, PhD), are examining vaccine hesitancy among dog owners, drawing connections between pet owners’ decisions, fears about human vaccines, and the lasting effects of Covid-19.

Do you know a co-worker or client who seems to be struggling with a substance use disorder (SUD)? Or maybe you’re the one struggling? Phil Richmond, DVM, CAPP, CPHSA, CCFP, has been there, and now he is on a mission to flip the paradigm about SUDs from stigma to compassion.

Are you missing charges? Keeping too much inventory on-hand? Practice owner Jenn Galvin has ideas for how to keep the team happier and discover hidden revenue in the process.

From a humble mobile surgery practice, Daniel Stobie, DVM, MS, DACVS, built NorthStar VETS into a referral practice with a 33,000-square-foot facility and 250 employees covering 20 different specialties—but it’s his team that he is most proud of.

As a five-time AQHA World Champion, Deah Hessian, DVM, knows the value of hard work and perseverance; and as the owner of Palisades Veterinary Hospital in Fountain Hills, Arizona, she and her team have earned a coveted spot in the running to be the 2023 AAHA-Accredited Practice of the Year.