The Pride Veterinary Medical Community (PrideVMC) is excited to announce their support of Pawsibilities, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups into the veterinary profession. Pawsibilities is a web and mobile platform designed to connect individuals from underrepresented backgrounds interested in the veterinary profession to potential mentors and advisors within the field.

Valerie Marcano, DVM, PhD, and Co-founder of Pawsibilities Vet Med shares that, “Mentorship is crucial to a successful career. A great mentor can inspire and elevate someone to new heights for everyone’s betterment, while a poor supervisor kills dreams in cradle. Despite this critical importance to a profession, there are shockingly few resources devoted to developing mentorship skills in veterinary medicine. Our field would benefit greatly from instruction at every point in a veterinarian’s career. Before we even become veterinarians, students must learn to identify great mentors, the people who will help us grow as people and professionals, while eschewing those who would write us off or drive us away.” 

An important strategic priority in 2020 for PrideVMC is to launch a mentoring program for our members. In support of this priority, a PrideVMC Mentoring Program Working Group (WG) was formed early in 2020 and has worked tirelessly to gather and analyze member needs as well as mentoring platform offerings.  The PrideVMC Board of Directors recently approved their recommendation to support Pawsibilities as the PrideVMC mentoring program of choice for our members and the profession.  We thank the members of this WG for all of their hard work!

Dr. Russ Drury, PrideVMC Director-at-large, serves on the Pawsibilities Advisory Board and recently shared, “The PrideVMC Board of Directors is thrilled about partnering with the Pawsibilities team to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in veterinary medicine, and to offer this valuable benefit to our members”.

PrideVMC Mentoring Program Working Group

Abby McElroy, Alexander Dhom, Andrea Pires dos Santos, Andrew Peregrine, Dane Whitaker, Francisco O. Conrado, Jesse Navatta, Kristen Pelenskij, Mia Cary, Melissa Brandley, Omar Farías, Paul Miranda, Roberto Moreira, Russ Drury, and Rusty Muse.

For questions about Pawsibilities please contact pawsibilitiesvetmed@gmail.com. For PrideVMC specific questions please contact us at info@pridevmc.org

The mission of the Pride Veterinary Medical Community (PrideVMC) is to create a better world for the LGBTQ+ veterinary community by striving to foster acceptance and inclusivity for people of all sexual orientation, gender identities and gender presentations within the veterinary medical profession and community. We fight discrimination, build collaborative networks and support LGBTQ+ veterinary students through mentorship and scholarship programs. For more information please contact info@pridevmc.org.

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