Columbus Humane Chief Medical Officer Dr. Laura Advent is a veterinarian with a passion for humanity. As a Westerville South High School graduate, her roots in the community run almost as deep as her compassion for pets and their loving owners.
An unexpected trajectory
Laura Advent
If you told Advent 10 years ago that she would be working as a veterinarian, she would have been shocked. In college, Advent had her sights set on working as an international epidemiologist studying zoonoses such as Ebola and rabies.
She attended The Ohio State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s in public health before entering OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine– the final step before pursuing her dream job at The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
She felt different from other veterinary students because of her driving focus on human welfare.
“They’re like, ‘Oh no, I don’t like people, I only love animals, I only want to touch animals,’ and I really wanted to help people,” she says.
As she went through the program, she became increasingly drawn to witnessing and experiencing the strong connections between people and animals that are not seen through the lens of transferable diseases. So, after veterinary school, she decided to give traditional veterinary medicine a try and accepted a job at a veterinary clinic in Circleville.
“Seeing the passion people have for their animals and what they’re willing to do for them, knowing that I could help them in that small way was so rewarding,” she says.
Advent’s father, now retired, also had a career in veterinary medicine and was able to support her through her journey.
“He’s been a tremendous support to me, navigating this career field and giving me all the tools I needed and pushing me in all the right ways, so I’m very lucky to have him,” she says.
Fostering healthy families
While in Circleville, Advent noticed some pet owners in the rural area had financial and educational barriers as well as a lack of access to veterinary care, especially for emergencies and surgical services.
She noticed that when individuals and families were struggling due to factors such as food insecurity, healthcare, housing and transportation, they needed human welfare support services in addition to veterinary care to keep not only themselves afloat, but also their pets healthy at home.
When owners surrender their pet willingly, it often isn’t that they don’t want to care for it, but that one or more of these factors inhibits them from doing so, she says.
“I saw veterinary medicine from a very different perspective,” she says. “I think there’s this myth that if people are struggling financially, they don’t care about their pet and they don’t deserve to have the animal, and that breaks my heart because you hear stories all the time where people are literally choosing to starve so that they can feed their animal, or they are choosing not to purchase their life-saving medication because they’re trying to help their animal. These people love their animals more than anything. They don’t need shame and criticism, they need support.”
Advent’s compassionate nature may have been shaped partly by unimaginable tragedy. While Advent says she lived the ideal early childhood, she lost her mother in a car accident at 16.
“It's very much changed me as a person,” she says. “I can have compassion and empathy for people in a very different way, and relate to people in crisis, and even though those (crisis) situations might be different, I can understand how your life can very unexpectedly change.”
Humane heart
When Advent heard that Columbus Humane was hiring, she decided to apply. Now, seven years later, she uses her expertise in public health, zoonoses and veterinary medicine, as well as her unique and compassionate perspective, to make a difference in the lives of families and pets.
Columbus Humane doesn’t just provide shelter for pets and facilitate adoptions, it also offers subsidized veterinary care and free dog food, trap-neuter-return services for feral cats, behavioral training, assistance with outside support services, emergency boarding for pets of domestic violence survivors and so much more.
“I knew from the moment I started this was the place I wanted to be,” she says. “There are so many different aspects of my job that involve how we keep people and animals healthy, and how to provide holistic support. I use that public health education every day, making sure animals that leave our building are safe for the public, all those things are related to public health. I had no idea that I could feel this fulfilled in a career.”
Columbus Humane also handles animal cruelty investigations in Franklin County. This part of the job isn’t so joyful, but for every tragedy, Advent says there are 100 more positive outcomes. She is inspired by Columbus Humane volunteers, staff, community members and donors dedicated to the cause.
“I feel more positive than I do anything else here because you see all these people working towards a common goal, and it’s so inspirational,” she says. “We’re all just sitting around talking about how do we help more animals, and how do we help more people?”
For Advent, the most rewarding part of her job is watching an animal that was once in a horrendous situation experience TLC, become healthy and eventually walk out the door alongside a loving family.
“A young family can walk in and the pet bonds with a kid, that same pet that has been in our facility, that we’ve been rehabilitating, and you see the look on a kid’s face when the bond instantly happens,” she says. “You get to watch this amazing outcome, but also knowing the impact that’s going to have in that family and that kid, there’s nothing better than that.”
Advent and Columbus Humane often check on new owners and pets soon after adoption. What they’ve seen is truly heartwarming.
“You’ll get the photos of the dog cuddling up in bed with the toddler, they’re reading books together, or it’s napping with the kid, or they’re playing at the park together, and that’s transformed everybody involved, right? Even us here,” she says.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
